Augustine, Sermones 277-283 (Classis III, de Sanctis)

what He took up, hope for what He showed.

9. Not temporal death is to be feared, but eternal. For what? If you do not wish to die, are you not going to die? Why do you fear what you cannot avoid? You fear what will be even if you do not wish it; and you do not fear what, even if you do not wish it, will not be. What is it that I have said? For all men who are born God has appointed death, through which they may depart from this world. You will be exempted from death if you are exempted from the human race. What are you doing? Is it said to you now, Choose whether you wish to be a man? You are already a man; you have come. Consider how you may go out from here: you are born, you are going to die. Flee, beware, ward it off, buy it off: you can put death off, not take it away. It will come, even if you do not wish it: it will come when you do not know. Why then do you fear what will be even if you are unwilling? Fear rather what will not be if you are unwilling. What is this? To the impious, the unbelieving, blasphemers, perjurers, the wicked, and all evil men God has threatened the fires of burning hell and eternal flames. First compare these two things, death for a moment and punishments for eternity. You fear death for a moment; it will come, even if you do not wish it: fear punishments for eternity, which will not come if you are unwilling. Much greater is what you ought to fear, and you have it in your power that it should not come to you; it is greater, and far greater, incomparably greater, what you ought to fear, and you have it in your power that it should not come to you. For if you live well, if you live badly, you are going to die: you will not escape dying, whether by living well or by living badly. But truly, if you choose to live well here, you will not be sent into eternal punishments. Since, then, you cannot choose here not to die, choose while you live not to die for eternity. This is the faith; this Christ showed by dying and rising again. By dying He showed what you are going to suffer, willing or unwilling: by rising again He showed what you are going to receive if you live well. Here with the heart belief is made unto righteousness, with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. But you fear to confess, lest men mock you, not those who have not believed, for they too believe inwardly, but lest those mock you who are ashamed to confess. Hear what follows: For the Scripture says, Everyone who believes in Him shall not be put to shame (Rom. 10:10–11). Meditate on these things, be in them: this is food not of the belly but of the mind. He who seized in the morning was dividing that very food towards evening. Turning to the Lord, etc.

Sermon 280. On the Feast of the Martyrs Perpetua and Felicity, 1.

Chapter I. — 1. Perpetua and Felicity

having obtained the reward of perpetual felicity by a distinguished martyrdom. This day, by its yearly return, recalls to our memory and in a certain way represents the day on which the holy handmaids of God, Perpetua and Felicity, adorned with the crowns of martyrdom, flourished in perpetual felicity, holding fast the name of Christ in the battle, and at the same time finding their own name also in the reward. We heard their exhortations in the divine revelations, and the triumphs of their sufferings, when they were read; and all these things, set out and made bright by the lights of words, we took in with the ear, beheld with the mind, honoured with reverence, praised with love. Yet a solemn sermon is owed by us too to so devout a celebration; and if I deliver one unequal to their merits, I nevertheless show an eager affection in the joy of so great a festival. For what is more glorious than these women, whom men admire more easily than they imitate? But this is above all the praise of Him in Whom those who believe, and who run together with faithful zeal in Whose name, are found according to the inner man to be neither male nor female; so that even in those who are women in body, strength of mind hides the sex of the flesh, and one is loath to think of in their limbs what could not appear in their deeds. The dragon, therefore, was trodden down by a chaste foot and a victorious step, when the ladder was shown set up by which blessed Perpetua was to go to God. Thus the head of the ancient serpent, which was a precipice for the woman falling, became a step for the woman ascending.

Chapter II. — 2. The glory of the martyrs. What is sweeter than this spectacle? what braver than this contest? what more glorious than this victory? Then, when the holy bodies were thrown to the beasts, throughout the whole amphitheatre the nations raged, and the peoples devised vain things. But He Who dwells in the heavens mocked them, and the Lord derided them (Ps. 2:1, 4). Now, however, the descendants of those whose voices raged impiously against the flesh of the martyrs praise the merits of the martyrs with pious voices. Nor was the theatre of cruelty filled then with so great a concourse of men to kill them, as the church of piety is filled now to honour them. Every year love beholds with reverence what impiety committed with sacrilege on one day. They too beheld, but with a far different will. They by shouting were doing what the beasts by biting were not accomplishing. We, however, both pity what the impious did, and venerate what the pious suffered. They saw with the eyes of the flesh what they might pour back into the savagery of their heart: we behold with the eyes of the heart what was snatched from them, so that they did not see it. They rejoiced at the dead bodies of the martyrs; we grieve for their dead minds. They, without the light of faith, thought the martyrs extinguished; we, with most faithful gaze, discern them crowned. In short, their insulting has become our exulting. And this indeed is religious and everlasting: that, however, was impious then, and now is plainly nothing at all.

Chapter III. — 3. Why the rewards of martyrs are the greatest. Love of this toilsome life. The rewards of the martyrs, dearly beloved, we believe to be the greatest, and most rightly do we believe it. But if we look carefully at the contests, we shall by no means wonder that those rewards are so great. For of this life, although toilsome and temporal, yet such great sweetness

there is, that although men cannot bring it about that they do not die, yet with many and great efforts they strive not to die soon. Nothing can be done to remove death, and to postpone it whatever can be done is done. Certainly it is irksome to every soul to labour; and yet even by those from whom nothing either good or bad is hoped for after this life, every labour is undertaken so that all labour may not be ended by death. What of those who, either through error, suppose that false and carnal delights will come after death, or through right faith hope for a certain rest, ineffably most tranquil and most blessed: do not they too take pains, and act with great cares, so as not to die soon? For what else do so many labours for necessary sustenance mean, so much service, whether of medicine or of other attendances, which either the sick demand or which is rendered to the sick, except that one may not come soon to the end that is death? At what price, then, is the infliction of no death at all in the future life to be purchased, when in this life the mere postponement of it is so precious? For so great is the I-know-not-what sweetness even of this wretched life, and so great the horror of death in the nature of all that live in whatever way, that even those do not wish to die who pass through death to the life in which they cannot die.

Chapter IV. — 4. The martyrs despised both death and pains for Christ. This so great pleasantness of living, then, and the fear of dying, the martyrs of Christ despise with outstanding virtue, by sincere charity, sure hope, unfeigned faith. Leaving behind their backs the world that promises and threatens in these things, they stretch forward to the things that are before. Treading on the head of the variously hissing serpent, they ascend these [steps]. For he is victor over all desires who subjugates, as a tyrant, the love of this life, whose attendants are all the desires. Nor is there any bond at all by which a man is held in this life, whoever is not held by love of that life itself. Now bodily pains are commonly weighed in some way against the fear of death. For sometimes the one, sometimes the other prevails in a man. A man under torture lies so as not to die; a man about to die also lies so as not to be tortured. Another tells the truth through not enduring the torments, so as not to be tortured for lying in his own behalf. But let whichever of these prevail in whatever minds. The martyrs of Christ, for the name and justice of Christ, overcame both: they feared neither to die nor to suffer pain. He conquered in them Who lived in them; so that those who lived not for themselves but for Him did not die even when dead. He Himself furnished them with spiritual delights, that they might not feel bodily afflictions; so far as sufficed not for their failing but for their exercise. For where was that woman when she did not perceive that she was fighting against a most savage cow, and asked when that would happen which had already happened? Where was she? Seeing what, had she not seen these things? Enjoying what, had she not felt these things? Estranged by what love, called away by what spectacle, inebriated by what cup? And still she clung to the bonds of the flesh, still she bore dying limbs, still she was weighed down by a corruptible body. What then, when the souls of the martyrs, loosed from these bonds after the labours of a perilous contest, have been received and refreshed by angelic triumphs, where it is not said to them, Fulfil what I have commanded; but, Receive what I have promised? With what pleasantness do they now spiritually feast?

How secure they are in the Lord, and in how sublime an honour they glory, who could teach by any earthly example?

Chapter V. — 5. The happiness of the martyrs is one thing before, another after the resurrection. And indeed this life which the blessed martyrs now have, although it can no longer be compared with any of the happinesses or sweetnesses of this world, is lived as a small portion of the promise, nay rather as a consolation for the delay. But the day of retribution will come, when, the bodies having been restored, the whole man will receive what he deserves. Then the limbs of that rich man too, which were once adorned with temporal purple, will be roasted in eternal fire, and the flesh of the ulcerous poor man, transformed, will shine among the Angels: although even now the one thirsts in the underworld for a drop from the finger of the poor man, and the other rests delightfully in the bosom of the just (Luke 16:19–24). For just as there is a very great difference between the joys or miseries of those dreaming and of those awake, so there is much difference between the torments or joys of the dead and of those rising again: not that the spirits of the departed must be deceived like those of sleepers, but that the rest of souls without any bodies is one thing, and the brightness and happiness of the Angels with heavenly bodies is another, to which the multitude of the faithful who rise again will be made equal: in which the most glorious martyrs will shine with the special light of their honour, and the very bodies in which they suffered unworthy torments will be turned into worthy ornaments for them.

Chapter VI. — 6. The solemnities of the martyrs: in what spirit they are to be celebrated. The martyrs have pity on us, and pray for us. Therefore let us celebrate their solemnities, as we do, most devoutly, with sober cheerfulness, chaste assembly, faithful reflection, confident proclamation. It is no small part of imitation to rejoice together in the virtues of better men. They are great, we are small: but the Lord has blessed the small along with the great (Ps. 113:13). They have gone before, they have stood out above. If we cannot follow them in deed, let us follow them in affection: if not in glory, at least in gladness: if not in merits, in prayers: if not in suffering, in fellow-suffering: if not in excellence, in connection. Let it not seem a small thing to us that we are members of that body of which they too are members, to whom we cannot be made equal. For if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it: so when one member is glorified, all the members rejoice together (1 Cor. 12:26). Glory to the head, from which provision is made both for the higher hands and for the lowest feet. Just as that One laid down His life for us, so the martyrs also imitated Him, and laid down their lives for the brethren, and in order that this most abundant fruitfulness of peoples, as of seedlings, might spring up, they watered the earth with their blood. We too, then, are the fruit of their labour. We admire them, they pity us. We congratulate them, they pray for us. They spread their bodies like garments, when the colt carrying the Lord was led into Jerusalem: we at least, as though cutting branches from the trees, pluck from the holy Scriptures hymns and praises, which we may bring forth into the common joy (Matt. 21:7–9). Yet we all obey the same Lord, we follow the same master, we accompany the same prince, we are joined beneath the same head, we make for the same Jerusalem, we pursue the same