Appendix to Augustine's Sermones: Sermones supposititii, Sermones 94-106

but to God (Acts 5:4). If therefore, brethren, Ananias is condemned because he did not give the whole of what he himself had promised from his own property, what do we think of him who is unwilling to pay back what he promised in return to others? See therefore, you too, brethren, what you promised to God when you first received the grace of faith. Behold, strangers abound in our city: do what you promised, lest it be said to you also, as was said to Ananias, You have not lied to men, but to God.

Sermon 101. On the words of the Acts, chapter 10:1-28, Peter went up into the upper room about the sixth hour, and when he was hungry, he wished to taste, etc.

1. Whom the clean or unclean animals signify. Who belong to the Church. Why the Church reads the Jewish precepts. Christian food. The vessel shown to Peter, the Church. Just now, while the reading of the Acts of the Apostles was being read, we heard that blessed Peter went up about the sixth hour into the upper room: and when he was hungry, he wished to taste. And while the disciples were preparing, he fell into an ecstasy of mind: and he saw a great vessel like a great linen sheet, hung by four cords, being let down from heaven, in which were all the four-footed beasts and creeping things of the earth. And a voice sounded from heaven: Peter, slay and eat. But he said: Lord, Thou knowest that I have never eaten anything common and unclean. And the voice again: What God has cleansed, do not call common. This was done three times, and the vessel was taken back into heaven. What, then, these things signify we wish, if you so bid, to convey briefly to the ears of your Charity. All the animals which the Jews are forbidden to eat are signs of things and, as has been said, shadows of things to come: as, for instance, what was written for them, that they should eat those animals which chew the cud and have a cloven hoof, but should not eat those which lack one or both of these (Deut. 14:6–7). Now by these animals are signified certain men who do not belong to the fellowship of the saints: for the cloven hoof pertains to conduct, and chewing the cud to wisdom. Why does the cloven hoof pertain to conduct? Because it slips with difficulty; for slipping is a sign of sin. And how does chewing the cud pertain to the wisdom of doctrine? Because Scripture says, A desirable treasure rests in the mouth of the wise; but a foolish man swallows it down (Prov. 21:20). He therefore who hears, and through negligence becomes forgetful, as it were swallows down what he has heard, so that it no longer has savour in his mouth, burying the very hearing in forgetfulness. But he who meditates on the Law of the Lord day and night, as it were chews the cud, and delights in the savour of the word on a kind of palate, so to speak, of the heart. This, therefore, which was commanded to the Jews signifies that those do not belong to the Church, that is, to the body of Christ, to grace and to the fellowship of the saints, who either are negligent hearers, or have evil conduct, or are reproved for both faults. So the other precepts given to the Jews after this manner are shadowy significations of things to come. After the light of the world, our Lord Jesus Christ, came, they are read only so that they may be understood, not also so that they may be observed. Leave has therefore been given to Christians not to act according to this vain custom, but to eat what they wish with moderation, with blessing, with giving of thanks. Perhaps, then, it was said to Peter too in this way, Kill and eat, so that he should no longer keep the observance of the Jews: yet a gulf of the belly and foul voracity were not commanded him. But nevertheless, so that you may understand that this was shown to him in a figure, there were creeping things in that vessel. Could he possibly eat serpents? What, then, does this signification mean?

2. The animals, the Gentiles. Peter bears the figure of the Church. That vessel signifies the Church; the four cords by which it hung signify the four parts of the world, through which the Catholic Church is extended, which is spread abroad everywhere. Whoever therefore wishes to go off into a part, and through some heresy to be cut off from the whole, does not belong to the sacrament of the four cords. But if he does not belong to the vision of Peter, neither will he belong to the keys which were given to Peter. For that vessel was let down by four cords for this reason, that God says His saints are to be gathered from the four winds at the end (Mark 13:27): because now the gospel faith is spread abroad over all these four quarters. Those animals, then, are the Gentiles: for all the Gentiles were unclean through errors and superstitions and their own lusts before Christ came; when He came, their sins having been forgiven them, they were made clean. Why, then, now after the remission of sins, should they not be received into the body of Christ, which is the Church of God, whose person Peter bore? Peter appears in many places as bearing the person of the Church. If Peter bore the figure of the Church, and the Church is the body of Christ, let it receive into itself, as if into its food, the Gentiles now cleansed, whose sins have been forgiven.

3. The killing and eating of the Gentiles. Hence Cornelius, a Gentile man, sent to him, and those who were with him, Cornelius whose alms, being accepted, had cleansed him in a certain manner: it remained that he should be incorporated, as clean food, into the Church, that is, into the body of the Lord. But Peter was fearful of delivering the Gospel to the Gentiles: because those who had believed from the circumcision were forbidding the Apostles to deliver the Christian faith to the uncircumcised; and they were saying that these ought not to come to a share in the Gospel unless they had received circumcision, which had been handed down to their fathers. That vessel, then, took away Peter's doubt; and therefore after that vision he was admonished by the Holy Spirit to go down and go with those who had come from Cornelius, and he set out. For Cornelius and those who were with him were regarded as if they were from among those animals which had been shown in the vessel: whom nevertheless God had already cleansed, Who had accepted their alms. They were therefore to be killed and eaten: that is, he was to kill in them their former life, in which they had not known Christ; and they were to pass into His body, as into the new life of the fellowship of the Church. For Peter himself too, when he had come to them, briefly recalled what had been shown to him in that vision. For he says: And you know how unlawful it is for a Jewish man to associate with and approach foreigners: but God has shown me that I should call no man common or unclean. This indeed God showed then, when that voice sounded: What God has cleansed, do not call unclean.

4. The linen cloth, a symbol of incorruption. Let down three times from heaven as a mystery of the Trinity. Four cords, four parts of the world. Perhaps this too may be asked: why it was a linen cloth in which those animals were. Certainly not without cause. For we know that the moth, which spoils other garments, does not consume linen. And therefore whoever wishes to belong to the mystery of the Catholic Church, let him shut out from his heart the corruption of evil lusts; and let him be so incorruptibly made firm in faith that he is not penetrated by depraved thoughts as by moths, if he wishes to belong to the sacrament of that linen cloth by which the Church is figured. And why was it let down three times from heaven, unless because all the Gentiles are baptized in the name of the Trinity, which belong to the four parts of the world, through which the Church is spread abroad, which the four cords by which that vessel was bound together signified, and believing in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit they are made new, so that they may belong to the fellowship and communion of the saints? The four cords, then, are the four parts of the world, and the threefold letting down shows the mystery of the Trinity. This matter also shows the twelvefold number of the Apostles, as if three were assigned to each of four: for four times three make twelve. And because those who were to preach the mystery of the Trinity through the four parts of the world

were twelve Apostles, therefore the four cords were let down from heaven a third time.

5. Recapitulation. As, then, was said above, blessed Peter bore the figure of the Catholic Church. That he went up onto the roof signifies that the Church was to ascend spiritually on high, away from earthly desires, and to have her heart lifted up, according to what the Apostle said, But our way of life is in the heavens (Phil. 3:20). That Peter was hungry signified that the Church would hunger for the salvation of the Gentiles. That sheet which was let down from heaven signified the Church. The animals which were in the sheet bore the image of all the Gentiles. The four cords by which that vessel hung seem to have signified the four parts of the world, in which the Gospel of Christ is preached. That the vessel was let down a third time signified the mystery of the Trinity and the sacrament of Baptism. That it was said to Peter, Kill and eat, signified that the Catholic Church would first kill, and afterwards eat, all who believe in Christ; that is, she would kill unbelief in order to implant faith. For no one can believe in Christ unless he first dies to what he was; according to what the Apostle says, For you are dead, and your life is hidden with Christ in God (Col. 3:3). For just as those who are ensnared by heretics are devoured alive by death, so those who come to Christ die to things past so as to live for things to come; they are lost to the devil and are gained for Christ; they die to death and are happily grafted into life. That the divine goodness may deign to accomplish and confirm this in us also, let us beseech it with unceasing prayers, through the gift of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns for ages of ages. Amen.

Sermon 102. On the words of the Apostle, Rom. chap. 7:15, For I do not do the good that I will; but the evil that I hate, that I do.

1. Care must be taken that the passage of the Apostle is not wrongly understood. Whenever the divine reading which is recited from the Epistle of the apostle Paul is read, it is to be feared that, wrongly understood, it may give an occasion to men who are seeking an occasion. For men are prone to sinning, and scarcely restrain themselves. So when they hear the Apostle saying, For I do not do the good that I will; but the evil that I hate, that I do, they do evil, and, as if displeased with themselves because they do evil, they think themselves like the Apostle, who said, For I do not do the good that I will; but the evil that I do not will, that I do. For it is read from time to time, and now it lays upon us the necessity of discussing it, lest men, taking the wholesome food wrongly, should turn it into poison. So let your Charity attend, until I tell you what the Lord shall have granted; so that, where you perhaps see me labouring in the difficulty of some obscurity, you may help me with a disposition of devotion. We must therefore measure the sense of the virtues by the inmost disposition of the speaker, and examine what the blessed Apostle called good, or what in comparison with it he pronounced evil, not by the bare signification of the words but with the same insight as his, declaring his understanding also according to its dignity, and search out his merit. For then shall we be able to grasp the sentences uttered under God's inspiration according to his purpose and will, when, weighing the state and merit of those by whom they were promulgated, we have put on, not in word but by experience, a like disposition, according to whose quality, without doubt, all meanings are conceived or sentences are brought forth.

2. What that good is which the Apostle could not accomplish. The merit of contemplation. Things good in themselves, compared with a greater

good, cease to seem good. Wherefore let us search out more diligently what the principal good is which the Apostle could not accomplish when he wished to. For we know many goods which we cannot deny that the blessed Apostle, and all men of his merit, both had by nature and acquired by grace. For chastity is good, continence praiseworthy, prudence admirable, kindness generous, sobriety circumspect, temperance modest, mercy dutiful, justice holy; and there is no doubt that all these were so full and perfect in the Apostle Paul and his companions that religion was taught by them through the instruction of virtues rather than of words. What of the fact that they were always consumed by unceasing care for all the Churches and by sleepless solicitude? How great a good of mercy this is, how great a perfection, to burn for those who are made to stumble, to be weak with those who are weak! Since, then, the Apostle abounded in such great goods, what that good is whose perfection he lacked we shall not be able to recognize unless we have advanced into that disposition out of which he himself spoke. All the virtues, therefore, which we have said he had, although they are like most splendid and precious gems, yet if they are compared with that excellent and choice pearl which the merchant of the Gospel, seeking it, desires to purchase by selling all that he possesses, their worth so grows cheap and is despised that, once they have been sold off without hesitation, the possession of one single good enriches the seller of innumerable goods. What, then, is the one thing which is so incomparably preferred to those so great and so innumerable goods that, all things being spurned and cast aside, it alone ought to be possessed? Surely that best part, whose magnificence and perpetuity, when Mary had preferred it, leaving aside the duty of hospitality and kindness, is thus proclaimed by the Lord: Martha, Martha, you are anxious and are troubled about very many things; but few things are needful, or even one. Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her (Luke 10:41–42). One and only, then, is the contemplation of God, to which all the merits of righteous deeds, all pursuits of the virtues, are rightly placed second. And indeed all those things which we said above shone forth in the apostle Paul are not only good and useful but also great and excellent. But just as, for example, the metal tin, which was thought to be of some usefulness and charm, becomes most worthless in view of silver; and again the worth of silver vanishes in comparison with gold; gold itself too is despised when set against gems; and the multitude of gems, however distinguished, is nonetheless surpassed by the brilliance of a single pearl: so all those merits of [human] capacity, although they are not only good and useful in the present but also acquire the gift of eternity, yet if they are compared with the merits of divine contemplation, will be reckoned cheap and, so to speak, saleable.

3. Why created things are very good. Why nevertheless [they are] vanity. And so that the authority of the Scriptures may also confirm this same comparison, does not Scripture say generally concerning all things which were created by God, And behold, all things which God made were very good (Gen. 1:31); and again, All things which God made are good in their time (Eccl. 3:11)? These things, then, which in the present are pronounced not only good simply but, with an addition, very good (for in truth they are suited to us while we dwell in this world, either for the use of life, or for the healing of the body, or for some purpose of a usefulness unknown to us; or certainly they are very good in this too, that they make us behold the invisible things of God, from the creation of the world, understood through the things that have been made [Rom. 1:20], and contemplate also His eternal power and divinity from so great and so ordered a construction of the fabric of the world and from the subsistence of all things that are in it): all these things nevertheless will not keep even the name of good if they are compared with that world to come, where there is no change of goods, no corruption of true blessedness to be feared. The blessedness of that world is thus described: The light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days (Isa. 30:26). These things, then, great and excellent and wonderful to behold, if with the future