Appendix to Augustine's Sermones: Sermones supposititii, Sermones 45-62

Sermon 45. On Elisha, and the axe-head fallen into the deep water.

1. A figure of the fall of the human race. Just now, when the divine reading was being read, dearest brothers, we heard that, as blessed Elisha was going with the sons of the Prophets to the river Jordan, while they were cutting wood for themselves, an axe-head fell into the water: and the man from whose hand it had dropped cried out to blessed Elisha, Alas, my lord, and I had received it on loan! After this, in the place where that axe-head had fallen, blessed Elisha threw in a piece of wood, and the iron floated (2 Kgs. 6:4–7). That Elisha, dearest brothers, bore the type of the Lord Saviour, we have often suggested to your Charity. But also in the young man, who was one of the sons of the Prophets, from whose hand the axe-head slipped, Christ the Lord is not unfittingly understood. That axe-head which fell is said to have signified Adam, or the whole human race. So the son of the Prophets held

the axe in his hand; and our Lord and Saviour [held] the human race, which He had created, in the hand of His power. But just as that axe fell from the Prophet's hand into the depths, so too the human race shook itself out of the hand of almighty God through pride, and fell, and sank itself in the river of luxury, or in the whirlpool of all sins. That axe, therefore, lay in the depths, because the human race had plunged by an unhappy fall into the abyss of all crimes; as it is written, I am stuck fast in the mire of the deep: and again, I have come into the depth of the sea, and the tempest has sunk me (Ps. 68:3), and the rest. For that river where the axe fell signifies pleasure that flows past and flees away and descends into the abyss, or the luxury of this world. For a river (fluvius) took its name from flowing (fluendo). And because all sinners, clinging to passing pleasures or gaping after them, are said to flow away, therefore that axe lay weighed down in the river and in the mire.

2. The figure of its restoration. Relapse is to be guarded against. Elisha, then, coming, cast in a piece of wood, and the iron floated. What is it to cast in wood and bring the iron forth into the light, if not to ascend the gibbet of the cross, and to raise up the human race from the depth of hell, and to set it free from the mire of all sins through the mystery of the cross? And after the iron floated, the Prophet put out his hand and took it back, and it returned to the useful service of its master. So it has been done with us too, most beloved brethren: we who by being proud had fallen from the hand of the Lord have been found worthy, through the wood of the cross, to be brought back again to the hand, that is, to the power, of the Lord. And therefore, as far as we can, let us labour with His help, lest by being proud we fall again from the hand of the Lord. And since, with no preceding merits, we have been brought forth from darkness to light, called back from death to life, led back from many errors into the way, let us run while we have the light, lest we neglect the passing times of salvation: nor let the evilly sweet and exceedingly dangerous gladness of this world delight us; lest, falling again from holy works and from the way of justice, as though from the hand of the Lord, we run back to the luxurious river of this world and are sunk, by an unhappy fall once more, in the mire of all sins: but let us hear the Apostle saying, If you have risen together with Christ, savour the things that are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God; seek the things that are above (Col. 3:1–2). Why does he say, If you have risen again, unless because we had fallen? And elsewhere the same Apostle: Rise, you who sleep, and arise from the dead, and Christ will enlighten you (Eph. 5:14). Does he not seem to you to be calling, as it were, to the axe lying in the mire? Rise, he says, you who sleep in the deep whirlpool; and through the mystery of the cross Christ will enlighten you.

3. He who sins destroys the temple of God. Now, dearest brethren, let us be eager, with God's help, so to carry out all these things through the sacrament of Baptism that the benefits of our Lord may bring forth for us not judgement but progress. And so let us hold fast the sweetness of charity, purity of heart and chastity of body, lest the sacraments of God suffer injury in us. For if it is true, nay, because it is true, what the Apostle says, that we are the temple of God and the Spirit of God dwells in us (1 Cor. 3:16), as often as we accomplish any sin, whether by thinking, or by speaking, or by doing, we destroy the temple of God and inflict injuries on Him Who dwells in us. And therefore, if anyone has either soiled the temple of God within himself with base thoughts, or defiled it with wanton speech, or perhaps by any crimes whatever has already destroyed it down to the foundations, let him, while there is time, be eager with God's help to repair what is lost, to raise up what has fallen, and to build again what is destroyed: so that when the day of judgement comes, even if he does not deserve to receive the crown, he may at least deserve to attain to the pardon of sins. But what I said, at least to the pardon of sins, I seem to have suggested for the sake of the humility which is quite necessary for us. For that heavenly physician has been accustomed to repay compunctious penitents, and those who give alms more generously, not only with pardon but also with a crown.

4. Conclusion. Therefore, dearest brothers, though negligent, yet appointed by the Lord as a herald of the truth such as I am, what it profits you to hear and what it behoves me to say, if not as much as I ought, at least as much as I can, I suggest, I cry out, I admonish. Let him who despises the herald fear the judge. None of you will be able to excuse himself before the judgement seat of Christ [by saying] that he was not admonished to resist all vices and to devote his effort to the virtues. And since what you ought to avoid or flee has frequently been shown to you, and what you ought to do or seek has been demonstrated by assiduous preaching, act thus with God's help, so that our admonition may profit you for reward rather than for judgement before the tribunal of the eternal Judge. May He Himself deign to grant this to you, to Whom be honour and glory for ages of ages. Amen.

Sermon 46. On the Famine of Samaria.

1. When a wicked nation departs from the worship of God, it is oppressed by a dreadful famine and troubled by a just necessity. There came, it says, the son of Adadezer king of Syria into Samaria, and besieged it: and there was a great famine, so that the head of an ass was sold for fifty shekels of silver, and the fourth part of a cab of pigeons' dung for five shekels of silver. Why, O most wretched one, do you suffer famine? Why do you feel the most foul want? Why are you torn by so great a scarcity? The punishment of famine grows daily, because the guilt too grows daily. The scourges persist, because the offences too persist among the people. For it is on your account that the enemy has rushed in, the foe has besieged you, the adversary has devoured your fodder. You hunger, and he grows fat. You suffer horrid famine, and he, on your fodder, has leisure for his own banquets. You buy the carcasses of asses and the dung of pigeons with silver. Henceforth avoid crafty ways, condemn your sins, restrain your offences, turn to God, abandon the idol, abhor the fabrication; then you will be able to conquer your enemies with divine help and to overcome them in a heavenly battle. Nor will anyone be able to harm you any further, if, your crime being condemned, divine worship has sprung up in you. O wickedness! A sinful people feeds on dreadful carcasses and the dung of pigeons, and does not seek the worship of God: famine and necessity demand defiled flesh and dreadful foods, and still the hardness of men worships a fabrication: fodder is denied, and unlawful things are offered by sinners: God is not sought by a sinful people, and an idol is adored. The worship of God is changed into a fabrication, religion is changed, food too is changed: the holy worship of God is changed, the fodder of men is changed too, forbidden things are eaten. For just as what is worshipped is alien, so what is hungered for against the rule is alien. Nor indeed is it hard for a people to be able to feel famine which, it is clear, has hungered spiritually by living badly.

2. Meanwhile the increases of famine grow along with the vices, and the sins of mothers crave the corpses of their sons, and two women arrange to devour their own children by turns. O grief! Natural affection is turned into food, the offspring that was borne is changed into fodder. A parricide is committed before the deadly banquet is reached. The soul is drawn out of the limbs, and the wombs of mothers are polluted. Innocent blood is poured out, so that the rabid hunger of parents may be fattened. For with them it is wholly cruel, it is unspeakable, I say, to shed the blood of the guiltless, to cook the flesh of the innocent, to gulp down the boiled limbs with greedy jaws; so that a woman turns into food the child whom God made for her comfort. But after they had come to the deadly banquet, one woman exhorts the other: Receive, she says, receive, pitiable mother, into your bowels the son lately begotten from your bowels. Be the tomb of your child, be the lodging of his body: be, if I may so speak, his monument. Let the infant, eaten, return for a little while within you, who for hunger could now no longer live. The maternal bosoms which had nourished him within themselves as a living being, and had brought him forth into the light once nourished, piecemeal

may recognize him restored to themselves. Let the womb now receive back the one eaten, whom birth had brought forth alive. Let the dead one return to the dwelling from which he had lately come out alive; since hunger presses and necessity compels. For why should I die while my son survives, and not rather I, his mother, consume my son?

3. So when this woman saw that the boy had now been eaten, she withdraws her own son from that slaughter. She refuses to do in her own case what she had done with the mother in another's. It is enough for me, she says, it is enough, woman, to have consented to your crime; it is enough that I have tasted the funeral feast and defiled my bowels with the flesh of an innocent. For I shared with you a cruel plan, to commit an unspeakable parricide upon my own son: what I committed with you I cannot expiate; the unspeakable crime I am not able to refuse. At least be relieved in mine, you who are so burdened in yours: leave off with my crime, leave off now that your graver one has been committed. Would that neither you had done what you did, nor I had committed the crime which I incurred, so as to do homicide and perpetrate parricide. Learn from me what you have done: for I too through you have deserved what I have lost. Therefore what you compel I do not do, what you urge I flee from, what you press upon me I abhor.

4. Then the one drags the other to the king, brings her to judgement, made public the case of so great a crime, which the enormity of the deed compelled her to make public. Then, I say, grief betrayed the wicked deed, then a faithless piety laid bare the monstrous crime. The crazed woman burns, because she committed parricide; she burns, because she devoured her own son: but she burns more, because in that slaughter the other did not sacrifice her own son. Either I shall die with her, she says, or at least, as she did to mine, so shall I fall upon her child. Confirm our pact, just king, with an unjust justice: for I would never have killed my child, had she not set out her own to be killed by a bitter agreement. Therefore, lord king, let her either give back mine who was eaten, or hand over her own who is hidden. Surely, as is fitting, strike us both with an equal sentence; lest either I live after so great a crime, or she rejoice that she was not a parricide against her own son.

5. When he heard this the king tore his garments and changed his countenance: and at once the prophet sent word to the king, Thus says the Lord, At this hour, tomorrow, a measure of fine flour shall be bought for a shekel, and two measures of barley shall be bought for a shekel in the gate of Samaria. The most holy Prophet announces to the king an abundance from heaven, which faith alone would believe, and unbelief would deny could come to pass. He announces, in place of famine, a coming abundance of fine flour; he announces that the famine will cease and abundance follow. He announces that the mighty works of God will suddenly follow by the power of the Most High; and to his own crime is added the unbelief of a man. Then the man who had been sent by the king says: Not even if the floodgates of heaven were opened can the things that are told come to pass. O the unbelief of man! He does not believe that the promised abundance will come to pass, who had felt a dreadful want. Nor does he consider that God had promised abundance, Who had imposed scarcity on the people. Most wicked man, why do you not believe in wonders? Why do you not receive the grain? Why do you shudder at the Lord Who promises? Believe, for it is given to those who believe; believe that it will come to the people, of which you have now denied yourself a sharer. And because you are unworthy of goods so great, it is granted you to see these things, and denied you to be able to enjoy them.

6. So while these things were being done, the Lord caused a sound to be heard in the camp of Syria, so as to bestow on the people the promised abundance: He chose that the din of four-horse chariots, and the noise of wagons, and the uproar of armed men should resound in the ears of the enemies, so that He might now set His people free. Struck by this din the enemies flee, turn their backs without a battle, leave their gear behind; and the Israelites, going out of the city, fall upon the camp of the enemy, plundering. So as the people were returning laden, he who had not believed fell, having slipped, and seeing the abundance among the people he fell and was trampled (2 Kgs. 6-7).