Augustine, Sermones 353-358 (Classis IV, de Diversis)

Sermon 357. On the praise of peace. Preached at Carthage, when the conference with the Donatists was at hand, in the year 411, around the 15th day of May.

1. The praise of peace. It is time to exhort your Charity, according to the strength which the Lord gives, to love peace and to pray to the Lord for peace. Let peace, then, be our beloved and our friend, with whom our heart may be a chaste bed; with whom there may be faithful rest and no bitter companionship; with whom there may be a sweet embrace and an inseparable friendship. To praise peace is more difficult than to have it. For if we wish to praise it, we long for strength, we search for ideas, we weigh our words; but if we wish to have it, we have and possess it without any labour. Those who love peace are to be praised; but those who hate it are better pacified for the meantime by teaching and by keeping silent than provoked by censure. The true lover of peace is a lover of its enemies. For just as, if you loved this light, you would not be angry with the blind but would grieve for them (for you would know what a good you were receiving, and so, perceiving how great a good they were cheated of, you would consider them worthy of mercy); and if you had wealth, or skill, or a remedy, you would run to heal them rather than to condemn them: so, if you are a lover of peace, whoever you are, have pity on him who does not love what you love, who does not have what you have. For the thing you love is such that you do not envy your co-possessor. He has peace with you, and does not narrow your possession. Whatever earthly thing you love, it is difficult for you not to envy the one who has it. Further, if perhaps it has entered your mind to share the land you possess with a friend, so that your benevolence may be praised, so that even in these temporal things charity may be proclaimed: if, then, you wish to share your earthly possession, such as an estate, such as a house, or anything of this kind, with a friend, you share it with one, and admit him into partnership, and rejoice with him. You think perhaps of admitting a third, and a fourth: at once you consider how many it can hold, how many it can bear, whether the house for dwelling in or the field for grazing; and you say, It does not hold a fifth now, a sixth cannot live with us, when does so small a possession feed a seventh? So it is not you but the narrowness that shuts out the rest. Love peace, have peace, possess peace, take to yourself as many as you can to possess peace: the more people possess it, the broader it will be. An earthly house does not hold many cohabitants; the possession of peace grows with many inhabitants.

2. To have peace is the same as to love it. How good it is to love! For this is to have. And who would not want what he loves to grow? If you want few to be with you in peace, your peace will be small. If you want this possession to grow, add a possessor. For that which I said, brethren, It is good to love peace, and to love it is itself to have it, what does it cost? With what voice may it be praised, with what heart may it be pondered: This is to have, to love? Consider the other things with desire for which men burn. See

another loving estates, silver, gold, numerous children, costly and adorned houses, most pleasant and most costly properties. Does he love this? He loves it. Does he who loves it therefore already have it? It can happen that the lover of all these things is empty-handed. When he does not have, he loves; he burns with desire to have; but when he has begun to have, he is tormented with fear of losing. He loves honour, he loves power. How many men in private station sigh for the obtaining of offices? and often the last day overtakes them before they arrive at what they love. How much, then, does that cost which, when you have loved it, you will have? You do not seek what you love at a price; you do not walk to a patron through whom you may attain it. Here, where you stand, love peace, and what you love is with you. This is a thing of the heart: nor do you share peace with friends in the way you share bread. For if you wish to share bread, the more there are for whom it is broken, the less there becomes of that from which it is given. But peace is like that bread which, in the hands of the Lord's disciples, grew by being broken and given.

3. Schismatics are to be called back to peace peaceably. The mind of the Donatists estranged from unity. Have peace, then, brethren. If you wish to draw others to it, be the first to have it, be the first to hold it. Let what you have glow hot in you, so that it may kindle others. The heretic hates peace, and the bleary-eyed man hates light. Is light therefore bad, because the bleary-eyed man cannot bear it? The bleary-eyed man hates light: but nevertheless the eye was created for the sake of light. So effort is made by those who love peace, and who wish what they love to be possessed together with them, that by the addition of a possessor the possession may grow. Let them therefore take pains that the eyes of the bleary-eyed be healed, by whatever means, by whatever endeavour. He is healed unwillingly, he does not wish it while he is being healed: but when he has seen the light, he will be delighted. Suppose he grows angry; do not grow weary in pressing him. Lover of peace, pay heed, and first be delighted yourself with the beauty of your beloved, and burn to draw another. Let him see what you see, love what you love, hold what you hold. Your beloved, whom you love, addresses you: she says to you, Love me, and at once you have me. Bring with you whom you can to love me; I shall be chaste, and shall remain undefiled. Bring whom you can; let them find, let them hold, let them enjoy to the full. If many who see do not corrupt this light, do many who love corrupt me? But they are unwilling to come, because they do not have the means by which they might see me. They are unwilling to come, because the splendour of peace dazzles back the bleariness of dissension. See the pitiable cry of the bleary-eyed. It is announced to them, It has been resolved that Christians should have peace. On receiving such news they say among themselves, Woe to us. Why? Unity is coming. What is this? what cry is this, Woe to us, unity is coming? How much more justly would you say, Woe to us, dissension is coming? Far be it that dissension should come: this is darkness to those who see. For unity is coming; we must rejoice, brethren. What has frightened you? Unity is coming, it has been said. Has it been said, A wild beast is coming, fire is coming? Unity is coming, light is coming. If he were willing to answer truthfully, he would say to you: I was not frightened because a wild beast is coming: for I am not timid: but I was frightened because light is coming; for I am bleary-eyed. Effort must therefore be given to healing. We must share with them that which is not made narrower by sharing, according to our strength, as far as we are able, as far as God grants.

4. Gentleness to be shown to heretics who quarrel and revile. Against heretics one must act not with wrangling, but rather with prayers before God. Therefore, dearly beloved, I exhort your Charity to show them Christian and catholic gentleness. Now we are pressing on with those who are to be cured. The eyes of the saints are inflamed; they are to be cured with caution and handled gently. Let no one take up a quarrel with anyone, let no one wish now to defend even his own faith by disputing, lest from the quarrel a spark be born, lest an occasion be offered to those seeking an occasion. In short, you hear abuse: bear it, pretend not to notice, pass it by. Remember the one who is to be cured. See how gentle physicians are to those whom they treat even with stinging remedies. They hear abuse, they offer medicine, and they do not return abuse for abuse. Let it be word for word: so that one is to be cured, the other cures: not two quarrelling. Bear it, I beseech you, my brothers. "But I do not bear it," he says, "because he blasphemes the Church." This the Church asks of you, that you bear it, because the Church is blasphemed. "He disparages my bishop," he says; "he speaks a charge against my bishop, and am I to keep silent?" Let him speak the charge, and you keep silent; not by acknowledging it, but by bearing it. You render this service to your bishop if for the time being you do not get mixed up in it. Understand the time, take counsel. How many blaspheme your God? Do you hear it, and does He not hear? Do you know it, and does He not know? And yet He makes the sun rise upon the good and the evil, and rains upon the just and the unjust (Matt. 5:45). He shows patience, He defers power. So you too recognize the time; do not provoke swollen eyes to trouble themselves. Are you a lover of peace? Let it be well with you in your heart with your beloved. "And what am I to do?" You have something to do. Put away wrangling, turn to prayers. Do not drive back the reviler with abuse, but pray for him. You wish to speak to him against him: speak to God for him. I do not tell you to keep silent: but choose rather where you speak, before Him with Whom you speak silently, with lips closed, with heart crying out. Where he does not see you, there be good on his behalf. But to him who does not love peace and wishes to quarrel, answer as a peacemaker: "Say whatever you like, hate as much as you please, detest as it may please you, you are my brother." What are you doing, so as not to be my brother? Absolutely, good, bad, willing, unwilling, you are my brother. And he says: "How am I your brother, you enemy, you foe?" Even as you say these things, you are my brother. It seems strange: he hates, he detests, and he is a brother? Do you wish me then to believe one who does not know what he is saying? one whose health I desire, that he may see the light and recognize his brother. Do you wish me therefore to believe him, that I am not his brother because he detests, because he hates, and not rather the light itself? Let us hear what the light itself says. Read the prophet: Hear, you who tremble, the word of the Lord. The Holy Spirit speaks through Isaiah the prophet: Hear, you who tremble, the word of the Lord. Say, Brothers

of ours you are, to those who hate you and who detest you. What is this? The light has shone forth, it has shown brotherhood: and still the bleary-eyed man says, Close the window. Offer your eyes to the light: recognize your brother, who is not set in darkness, you who are set in darkness: and say it, say it securely; you are speaking the words of God and not mine. Say, God says, You are our brothers: to whom? to those who hate you. For what wonder is it if you say it to those who love you? To those who hate you, and who detest you. Why this? Listen, and look at the fruit of the cause. As if you had asked the Lord your God, and had said, Lord, how shall I say, You are my brother, to him who hates, who detests? Tell me why. That the name of the Lord may be honoured. Let Him appear even in joyfulness: but let them be put to shame (Isa. 66:5, according to the Septuagint). See, I beseech you, the fruit of patience, of such great meekness. Say, You are our brothers. Why? That the name of the Lord may be honoured. But why does he not recognize you as a brother? Because the name of a man has brought honour to men. Therefore say, My brother: though you hate me, though you detest me, you are my brother. Recognize in yourself the sign of my father. It is the word of our father. Bad brother, quarrelsome brother, you are my brother. For you say, just as I do, Our Father Who art in heaven (Matt. 6:9). We say one thing: why are we not in one? I ask you, brother, recognize what you say with me, and condemn what you do against me. Turn your mind to the words coming out of your mouth. Listen, not to me, but to yourself. See to Whom we say, Our Father Who art in heaven. Not a friend, not a neighbour; but He Himself to Whom we say it commands us to be of one accord. We have together one voice before the Father: why do we not have together one peace?

5. Pious works for obtaining the peace of the Church. The solemn fast after Pentecost. Hospitality towards those who come to Carthage for the sake of the conference. Say such things ardently, say them gently. Say them burning with the fervour of charity, not with the swelling of dissension, and pray to the Lord together with us with solemn fasts. What we already render to God, let us render also for this cause. For we already fast solemnly after Pentecost: and we would certainly fast even if this cause did not exist. What then do we owe to our brothers, whom we receive in the name of the Lord our God, our physician, to be cared for and healed, offering them to Him that they may be healed, not presuming for ourselves the hands of the physician? But what are we doing? Let us pray to the physician Himself, fasting with humble heart, with pious confession, with brotherly fear. Let us show piety to the Lord, charity to the brothers. For let our almsgiving grow, by which our prayers may be heard more readily. Pursue hospitality. It is the time: the servants of God are coming. It is the time, it is the opportunity; why does it perish? Pay attention to what you have in the upper room of your house. Pay attention also to what you are storing up above, what you are keeping for yourself, about which treasure alone you are secure. Put it above, entrust it not to your servant, but to your Lord. Do you fear there that a thief may creep in, that a housebreaker may burst in, that a turbulent enemy may snatch it away?