Augustine, Sermones 266-275 (Classis II, de Tempore)

the Holy Spirit. Behold, it has been fulfilled, behold, it has been demonstrated, what the Lord said: The Spirit breathes where He wills (John 3:8). Behold, it has been fulfilled, behold, it is shown how truly the Lord said: The Spirit breathes where He wills. And yet the proud heretic does not yet breathe out the spirit of arrogance. He still says: It is mine; do not receive from him, but from me. I answer: I seek what is God's. He says: Have you not read, But let the oil of the sinner not fatten my head? So the oil is yours? If it is yours, I do not want it: if it is yours, it is evil. But if it is God's, then even through you, a bad man, it is good. Mud does not defile the ray of the sun, and do you defile the oil of God? But you have it to your own harm for this reason, that being bad you have what is good; being bad you have received what is God's: because, being separated, you have not gathered but scattered. Those who eat unworthily eat and drink judgement to themselves (1 Cor. 11:29): because they eat unworthily, do they not eat? Christ gave the morsel to the unworthy Judas (John 13:26), and he received it unto judgement. Did he receive it from a bad man? Did he receive something bad? No, he is guilty for this reason, that, being bad, he received a good thing from the Good. The oil of the Saviour, therefore, is not the oil of a sinner. Let it be received well, and it is good: even if it is received badly, it is good. Woe to men who receive the good badly!

8. The rebuker is to be loved, the flatterer to be shunned. Yet look at the sense of Scripture, lest perhaps it suggest something that lies open to a better understanding. The just man, it says, will correct me in mercy: even if the rebuker strikes, he loves, he cherishes; the flatterer deceives: the one has pity, the other cheats. Hard is the rod of the one who strikes, soft is the oil of the one who flatters. For all flatterers anoint the head, they do not heal the inner parts. Love the rebuker, beware of the flatterer. For if you love the truthful rebuker and beware of the deceitful flatterer, you can say what has been sung: The just man will correct me in mercy and will reprove me, but the oil of the sinner, that is, the blandishment of the flatterer, will not fatten my head. A fat head is a big head: a big head is a proud head. Better is a sound heart than a big head: but the rod of the rebuker makes a sound heart; the oil of the sinner, that is, the assent of the flatterer, makes a big head. If you have made your head big, beware of the weight of the head, lest you be brought to a fall headlong. This much, as far as I judge, we have said sufficiently for the time on this one verse of the Psalm, with the Lord helping and building up your hearts in secret.

Sermon 267. On the day of Pentecost, 1.

Chapter I. 1. The solemnity of the coming of the Holy Spirit. The solemnity of this present day calls to remembrance the great Lord God and the great grace which has been poured out upon us. For a solemnity is celebrated for this reason, that what was done once may not be blotted out of memory. For a solemnity, from the fact that it customarily occurs in the year, has received its name:

just as a river is said to have perenniality because it is not dried up in summer but flows through the whole year: hence perennial, that is, through the year; so also solemn, what is customarily celebrated within the year. We celebrate today the coming of the Holy Spirit. For the Lord sent from heaven the Holy Spirit, Whom He promised on earth. And because He had thus promised that He would send Him from heaven, He cannot come, He says, unless I go away; but when I have gone away, I will send Him to you (John 16:7); He suffered, He died, He rose again, He ascended: it remained that He should fulfil what He had promised. Awaiting this, His disciples, souls, as it is written, one hundred and twenty (Acts 1:15), the number of the Apostles multiplied tenfold; for He chose twelve, and on a hundred and twenty He sent the Spirit: awaiting, then, this promise, they were in one house, they were praying: for they were already desiring it by faith itself, which they desired by prayer itself, by spiritual desire itself; they were new wineskins, new wine was awaited from heaven, and it came. For that great cluster had already been trodden and glorified. For we read in the Gospel, For the Spirit had not yet been given, because Jesus had not yet been glorified (John 7:39).

Chapter II.—2. The gift of tongues. Now what it answered, you have heard: a great miracle. All who were present had learned one language. The Holy Spirit came; they were filled, they began to speak in the various tongues of all nations, which they had not known nor learned: but He Who had come was teaching; He entered, they were filled, He poured forth. And then this was the sign: whoever received the Holy Spirit, suddenly filled with the Spirit, spoke in the tongues of all (Acts 10:46); not those hundred and twenty alone. The Scriptures themselves teach us: afterwards men believed, were baptized, received the Holy Spirit, spoke in the tongues of all nations. Those who were present were astounded, some marvelling, others mocking, so that they said, These men are drunk, they are full of new wine (Acts 2:1–13). They were laughing, and yet they were saying something true. For the wineskins had been filled with new wine. You heard, when the Gospel was being read, No one puts new wine into old wineskins (Matt. 9:17): the carnal man does not hold spiritual things. Carnality is oldness, grace is newness. However much a man has been renewed for the better, so much the more does he hold what savours of truth. The new wine was bubbling, and with the new wine bubbling the tongues of the nations flowed forth.

Chapter III.—3. Why the gift of tongues is not granted now. Is the Holy Spirit, brethren, not given now? Whoever thinks this is not worthy to receive Him. He is given now also. Why then does no one speak in the tongues of all nations, as he spoke who was then filled with the Holy Spirit? Why? Because what that signified has been fulfilled. What is that? When we celebrated the Fortieth, remember, we commended to you that the Lord Jesus Christ commended His Church and ascended. The disciples asked, When will the end of the world be? And He: “It is not yours to know the times or the moments which the Father has set in His own power.” He was still promising what He fulfilled today: “You will receive the power of the Spirit

Holy, coming upon you, and you will be witnesses for Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea and Samaria, and even to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:7–8). The Church was then in one house; it received the Holy Spirit: it was in few men, it was in the tongues of the whole world. Behold what it was foreshowing just now. For that the little Church spoke in the tongues of all nations, what does it mean, if not that this great Church, from the rising of the sun to its setting, speaks in the tongues of all nations? Now is fulfilled what was then promised. We have heard, we see. Hear, O daughter, and see (Ps. 44:11): to the queen herself it was said, Hear, O daughter, and see; hear the promise, see it fulfilled. Your God has not deceived you, your Bridegroom has not deceived you, He Who dowered you with His own blood has not deceived you: He has not deceived you Who made you beautiful out of foul, a virgin out of unclean. You were promised to yourself: but promised in few, fulfilled in many.

Chapter IV.—4. The Holy Spirit, as the soul of the body of the Church, is not had outside it. Let no one, then, say: I have received the Holy Spirit; why do I not speak in the tongues of all nations? If you wish to have the Holy Spirit, pay attention, my brothers: our spirit, by which every man lives, is called the soul; our spirit, by which each single man lives, is called the soul: and you see what the soul does in the body. It quickens all the members; through the eyes it sees, through the ears it hears, through the nostrils it smells, through the tongue it speaks, through the hands it works, through the feet it walks: it is present to all the members at once, that they may live; it gives life to all, functions to each. The eye does not hear, the ear does not see, the tongue does not see, nor do the ear and the eye speak; but yet it lives: the ear lives, the tongue lives; the functions are different, the life is common. So is the Church of God: in some saints it works miracles, in other saints it speaks the truth, in other saints it guards virginity, in other saints it guards conjugal chastity, in some this, in others that: each performs its own works, but they live alike. Now what the soul is to the body of a man, that the Holy Spirit is to the body of Christ, which is the Church: the Holy Spirit does in the whole Church what the soul does in all the members of one body. But see what you should beware of, see what you should observe, see what you should fear. It happens that in the human body, or rather from the body, some member is cut off, a hand, a finger, a foot; does the soul follow the part cut off? When it was in the body, it was living; cut off, it loses life. So too a Christian man is a Catholic while he lives in the body; cut off, he has become a heretic; the spirit does not follow an amputated member. If, then, you wish to live by the Holy Spirit, hold fast to charity, love truth, long for unity, that you may attain to eternity. Amen.

Sermon 268. On the Day of Pentecost, 2.

1. The Holy Spirit, by the gift of tongues, commends the unity of the Catholic Church. On account of the coming of the Spirit

Holy, this present day is solemn for us, the fiftieth from the resurrection of the Lord, made up of seven weeks multiplied. But reckoning seven weeks, you will find forty-nine: one is added, so that unity may be commended to us. What did the very coming of the Holy Spirit do? Whence did He teach His presence? whence did He show it? They all spoke in the tongues of all nations. Now there were in one place a hundred and twenty: the twelvefold number of the Apostles, hallowed by a mystery, was multiplied tenfold by ten. What then, did each one on whom the Holy Spirit came speak in single tongues of all the nations, this one in one tongue and that one in another, and did they as it were divide among themselves the tongues of all nations? Not so: but each man, one man, spoke in the tongues of all nations. One man spoke in the tongues of all nations: the unity of the Church in the tongues of all nations. Behold, here too the unity of the Catholic Church, spread throughout the whole world, is commended.

2. The Holy Spirit is not had outside the Church. Whoever therefore has the Holy Spirit is in the Church, which speaks in the tongues of all. Whoever is outside this Church does not have the Holy Spirit. For this is why the Holy Spirit deigned to show Himself in the tongues of all nations, so that he may understand that he has the Holy Spirit who is held within the unity of the Church, which speaks in all tongues. One body, says Paul the Apostle: one body and one spirit (Eph. 4:4). Consider our members. The body is made up of many members, and one spirit quickens all the members. Behold, by the human spirit by which I myself am a man, I hold all my members together: I command the members to move, I direct the eyes to see, the ears to hear, the tongue to speak, the hands to work, the feet to walk. The functions of the members are divided up, but one spirit holds them all together. Many things are commanded, many things are done: one commands, one is served. What our spirit, that is, our soul, is to our members, that the Holy Spirit is to the members of Christ, to the body of Christ, which is the Church. That is why the Apostle, when he had named one body, lest we should understand a dead body, says: One body. But I ask you, does this body live? It lives. From what? From the one spirit. And one spirit. Consider therefore, brethren, in our own body, and grieve for those who are cut off from the Church. In our members, as long as we live, while we are healthy, all the members fulfil their functions. If one member suffers pain from some cause, all the members suffer with it. Yet because it is in the body, it can suffer pain; it cannot expire. For what is it to expire, but to lose the spirit? But if a member is cut off from the body, does the spirit follow it? And yet the member is recognized for what it is; it is a finger, it is a hand, it is an arm, it is an ear: apart from the body it has form, but it does not have life. So too is a man separated from the Church. You seek the sacrament from him, you find it: you seek Baptism, you find it: you seek the Creed, you find it. It is form: unless within

you are quickened in spirit, in vain do you glory outwardly in the form.

3. Unity commended in the creation of things and in the birth of Christ. Dearly beloved, God greatly commends unity. Let this very thing move you: that in the beginning of creatures, when God established all things, He made the stars in heaven, and on earth plants and trees; He said, Let the earth bring forth, and trees were brought forth, and all green things; He said, Let the waters bring forth swimming things and flying things, and it was so; Let the earth bring forth the living soul of all cattle and beasts, and it was so. Did God make the other birds from one bird? Did He make all fishes from one fish? all horses from one horse? all beasts from one beast? Did not the earth bring forth many at once, and fill many [places] with manifold offspring? When it came to the making of man, one was made, and from one the human race. Nor did He will to make two separately, male and female, but one, and from the one, one woman (Gen. 1 and 2). Why so? Why does the human race begin from one, unless because unity is commended to the human race? And the Lord Christ is from one woman; unity is a virgin; she keeps her virginity, she preserves incorruption.

4. Christ commends the unity of the Catholic Church to the Apostles. The Lord Himself commends the unity of the Church to the Apostles: He shows Himself; they think they are seeing a spirit; they are terrified; they are strengthened; it is said to them, "Why are you troubled, and why do thoughts rise up in your heart? See My hands: handle and see, for a spirit does not have bones and flesh, as you see that I have." Behold, while they are still troubled for joy, He takes food, not from need but from power; He takes it in their presence: He commends against the impious the reality of the body, He commends the unity of the Church. For what does He say? "Are not these the things which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which are written in the law of Moses, and in the Prophets, and in the Psalms concerning Me? Then He opened their understanding," the Gospel says, "that they might understand the Scriptures. And He said to them, For thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead on the third day." Behold our Head; behold the Head: where are the members? Behold the Bridegroom: where is the bride? Read the marriage contract: hear the Bridegroom. Are you seeking the bride? Hear it from Him: no one takes His own from Him, no one substitutes another's: hear it from Him. Where do you seek Christ? In the tales of men, or in the truth of the Gospels? He suffered, He rose on the third day, He showed Himself to His disciples. Him we already have: where do we seek her? Let us ask Him: It was necessary for Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day. Behold, it has already been done, it is already seen. Speak, O Lord; do Thou speak, Lord, lest we go astray: And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name among all nations, beginning from Jerusalem (Luke 24:36–47). It began from Jerusalem, and it has reached us. And it is there, and here. For it did not depart from there in order to come to us: it grew, it did not migrate. This He commended immediately after His resurrection. He spent forty days with them: when about to ascend into heaven He commended the Church herself again. The Bridegroom, about to set out, His bride