be heir with my son Isaac."' We search where the Scripture says this, to see whether any persecution on Ishmael's part against Isaac preceded this; and we find that this was said by Sarah when she saw the boys playing together. The playing which Scripture says that Sarah saw, the apostle calls persecution. Hence, they who seduce you by playing, persecute you the more. " Come," say they, "Come, be baptized here, here is true baptism for thee." Do not play, there is one true baptism; that other is play: thou vvilt be seduced, and that will be a grievous persecution to thee. It were better for thee to make Ishmael a present of the kingdom; but Ishmael will not have it, for he means to play. Keep thou thy father's inheritance, and hear this: "Cast out the bond woman and her son; for the son of the bond woman shall not be heir with my son Isaac.''
13. These men, too, dare to say that they are wont to suffer persecution from catholic kings, or from catholic princes. What persecution do they bear? Affliction of body: yet if at times they have suffered, and how they suffered, let themselves know, and settle it with their consciences; still they suffered only affliction of body: the persecution which they cause is more grievous. Beware when Ishmael wishes to play with Isaac, when he fawns on thee, when he offers another baptism: answer him, I have baptism already. B'or if this baptism is true, he who would give thee another would be mocking thee. Beware of the persecution of the soul. For though the party of Donatus has at times suffered somewhat at the hands of catholic princes, it was a bodily suffering, not the suffering of spiritual deception. Hear and see in the very facts of Old Testament history all the signs and indications of things to come. Sarah is found to have afflicted her maid Hagar: Sarah is free. After her maid began to be proud, Sarah complained to Abraham, and said, "Cast out the bond woman;'' she has lifted her neck against me. His wife complains of Abraham, as if it were his doing. But Abraham, who was not bound to the maid by lust, but by the duty of begetting children, inasmuch as Sarah had given her to him to have offspring by her, says to her: "Behold, she is t!iy handmaid; do unto her as thou wilt," And Sarah grievously afflicted her, and she fled from her face. See, the free woman afflicted the bond woman, and the apostle does not call that a persecution; the slave plays with his master, and he calls it persecution: this afflicting is not called persecution; that playing is. How does it appear to ' Gen. xxi. 9-12; Gal. iv. 30.
8o [Tractate XI.
you, brethren? Do you not understand what is signified? Thus, then, when God wills to stir up powers against heretics, against schismatics, against those that scatter the Church, that blow on Christ as if they abhorred Him, that blaspheme baptism, let them not wonder; because God stirs them up, that Hagar may be beaten by Sarah. Let Hagar know herself, and yield her neck: for when, after being humiliated, she departed from her mistress, an angel met her, and said to her, " What is the matter with thee, Hagar, Sarah's handmaid? '' When she complained of her mistress, what did she hear from the angel? "Return to thy mistress."' It is for this that she is afflicted, that she may return; and would that she may return, for her offspring, just like the sons of Jacob, will obtain the inheritance with their brethren.
14. But they wonder that Christian powers are roused against detestable scatterers of the Church. Should they not be moved, then? How otherwise should they give an account of their rule to God? Observe, beloved, what I say, that it concerns Christian kings of this world to wish their mother the Church, of which they have been spiritually born, to have peace in their times. We read Daniel's visions and prophetical histories. The three children praised the Lord in the fire: King Nebuchadnezzar wondered at the children praising God, and at the fire around them doing them no harm: and whilst he wondered, what did King Nebuchadnezzar say, he who was neither a Jew nor circumcised, who had set up his own image and compelled all men to adore it; but, impressed by the praises of the three children when he saw the majesty of God present in the fire, what said he? "And I will publish a decree to all tribes and tongues in the whole earth." What sort of decree? "Whosoever shall speak blasphemy against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, shall be cut off, and their houses shall be made a ruin,"= See how an alien king acts with raging indignation that the God of Israel might not be blasphemed, because He was able to deliver the three children from the fire: and yet they would not have Christian kings to act with severity when Christ is contemptuously rejected, by whom not three children, but the whole world, with these very kings, is delivered from the fire of hell! For those three children, my brethren, were delivered from temporal fire. Is He not the same God who was the God of the Maccabees and the God of the three children? The latter He deliv- I Gen. xvi. 9.
Da ered from the fire; the former did in body perish in the torments of fire, but in mind ihey remained steadfast in the ordmances of the law. The latter were openly delivered, tne former were crowned in secret.^ It is a greater thing to be delivered from the flame of hell than from the furnace of a human power. If, then, Nebuchadnezzar praised and extolled and gave glory to God because He delivered three children from the fire, and gave such glory as to send forth a decree throughout his kingdom, " Whosoever shall speak blasphemy against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, shall be cut off, and their houses shall be brought to ruin,'' how should not these kings be moved, who observe, not three children delivered from the flame, but their very selves delivered from hell, when they see Christ, by whom they have been delivered, contemptuously spurned in Christians, when they hear it said to a Christian, " Say that thou art not a Christian"? Men are willing to do such deeds, but they do not wish to suffer, at all events, such punishments.
15. For see what they do and what they suffer. They slay souls, they suffer in body: they cause everlasting deaths, and yet they complain that they themselves suffer temporal deaths. And yet what deaths do they suffer? They allege to us some martyrs of theirs in persecution. See, Marculus was hurled headlong from a rock; see, Donatus of Bagaia was thrown into a well. When have the Roman authorities decreed such punishments as casting men down rocks? But what do those of our party reply? What was done I know not; what, however, do ours tell? I That they flung themselves headlong and cast : the infamy of it upon the authorities. Let us call to mind the custom of the Roman authorities, and see to whom we are to give credit. Our men declare that those men cast themselves down headlong. If they are not the very disciples of those men,/who now cast themselves down precipices, while no man persecutes them, tion of our men: what wonder did what these are wont to do? authorities never did employ ments: for had they not the them to death openly? they wished to be honored when dead, found not a death to make them more famous. In short, whatever the fact was, I do not know. And even if thou hast suffered corporal affliction, O party of Donatus, at the hand of the Catholic Church, as an Hagar thou hast suf- 3 2 Mace. vn.
let us not credit the allegaif those men The Roman such punish - power to put But those men, while Tractate XII.]
fered it at the hand of Sarah; " return to thy by speaking of other matters, what has been mistress.'' A point which it was indeed nee-, spoicen mignt be shut out from your hearts, essary to discuss has detained us somewhat too I Hold fast these things, declare such things; long to be at all able to expound the whole and while yourselves are inflamed, go your text of the Gospel Lesson. Let this sufifice you in the meantime, beloved brethren, lest, way thither, and set on tire them that are cold.
TRACTATE XII.
Chapter IH. 6-21.
1. We observe, beloved, that the intimation with which we yesterday excited your attention has brought you together with more alacrity, and in greater number than usual; but meanwhile let us, if you please, pay our debt of a discourse on the Gospel Lesson, which comes in due course. You shall then hear^ beloved, as well what we have already effected concerning the peace of the Church, and what we hope yet further to accomplish. For the present, then, let the whole attention of your hearts be given to the gospel; let none be thinking of anything else. For if he who attends to it wholly apprehends with difificulty, must not he who divides himself by diverse thoughts let go what he has received? Moreover, you remember, beloved, that on the .'ast Lord's day, as the Lord deigned to help us, we discoursed of spiritual regeneration, That lesson we have caused to be read to you again, so that what was then left unspoken, we may now, by the aid of your prayers in the name of Christ, fulfill.
2. Spiritual regeneration is one, just as the generation of the flesh is one. And Nicodemus said the truth when he said to the Lord that a man cannot, when he is old, return again into his mother's womb and be born. He indeed said that a man cannot do this when he is old, as if he could do it even were he an infant. But be he fresh from the womb, or now in years, he cannot possibly return again into the mother's bowels and be born. But just as for the birth of the flesh, the bowels of vvoman avail to bring forth the child only once, so for the spiritual birth the Iiowels of the Church avail that a man be baptized only once. Therefore, in case one should say, " Well, but this man was born in heresy, and this in schism: '' all that was cut away, if you remember what was debated to you about our three fathers, of whom God willed to be called the God, not that they were thus alone, but because in them alone the figure of the future people was made up in its completeness. For we find one born of a bond woman disinherited, one born of a free woman made heir: again, we find one born of a free woman disinherited, one born of a bond woman made heir. Ishmael, born of a bond woman, disinherited; Isaac, born of a free woman, made heir: Esau, born of a free woman, disinherited; the sons of Jacob, born of bond women, made heirs. Thus, in these three fathers the figure of the whole future people is seen: and not without reason God saith, "I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob: this," saith He, "is my name for ever.''' Rather let us remember what was promised to Abraham himself: for this was promised to Isaac, and also to Jacob. What do we find? "In thy seed shall all nations be blessed."- At that time the one man believed what as yet he saw not: men now see, and are blinded. What was promised to the one man is fulfilled in the nations; and they who will not see what is already fulfilled, are separating themselves from the communion of the nations. But what avails it them that they will not see? See they do, whether they will or no; the open truth strikes against their closed eyes.
3. It was in answer to Nicodemus, who was of them that had believed on Jesus, that it was said. And Jesus did not trust Himself to them. To certain men, indeed, He did not trust Himself, thougii they had already believed on Him. Thus it is written, " Many lielieved in His name, seeing the signs which He did. But Jesus did not trust Himself to them. For He needed not that any should testify of man; for Himself knew what was in man." Behold, they already believed on Jesus, and yet Jesus did not trust Himself to them. Why? because they were not yet born again of water and of the Spirit. From this have we ex- Kx. ill 6, 15.
2 Ccn. xxii 18.
[Tractate XII.
horted and do exhort our brethren the catechumens. For if you ask them, they have already beheved in Jesus; but because they have not yet received His flesh and blood, Jesus has not yet trusted Himself to them. What must they do that Jesus may trust Himself to them? They must be born again of water and of the Spirit; the Church that is in travail with them must bring them forth. They have been conceived; they must be brought forth to the light: they have breasts to be nourished at; let them not fear lest, being born, they may be smothered; let them not depart from the mother's breasts.
4. No man can return into his mother's bowels and be born again. But some one is born of a bond woman? Well, did they who were born of bond women at the former time, return into the wombs of the free to be born anew? The seed of Abraham was in Ishmael also; but that Abraham might have a son of the bond maid, it was at the advice of his wife. The child was of the husband's seed, not of the womb, but at the sole pleasure of the wife. Was his birth of a bond woman the reason why he was disinherited? Then, if he was disinherited because he was the son of a bond woman, no sons of bond women would be admitted to the inheritance. The sons of Jacob were admitted to the inheritance; but Ishmael was put out of it, not because born of a bond woman, but because he was proud to his mother, proud to his mother's son; for his mother was Sarah rather than Hagar. The one gave her womb, the other's will was added: Abraham would not have done what Sarah willed not: therefore was he Sarah's son rather. But because he was proud to his brother, proud in playing, that is, in mocking him; what said Sarah? "Cast out the bond woman and her son; for the son of the bond woman shall not be heir with my son Isaac."' It was not, therefore, the bowels of the bond woman that caused his rejection, but the slave's neck. For the free-born is a slave if he is proud, and, what is worse, the slave of a bad mistress, of pride itself. Thus, my brethren, answer the man, that a man cannot be born a second time; answer fearlessly, that a man cannot be born a second time. Whatever is done a second time is mockery, whatever is done a second time is play. It is Ishmael playing, let him be cast out. For Sarah observed them playing, saith the Scripture, and said to Abraham, " Cast out the bond woman and her son." The playing of the boys displeased Sarah, She saw something strange in their play. Do • Gen. xxi. 9, 10.
not they who have sons like to see them playing? She saw and disapproved it. Something or other she saw in their play; she saw mockery in it, observed the pride of the slave; she was displeased with it, and she cast him out. The children of bond women, when wicked, are cast out; and the child of the free woman, when an Esau, is cast out. Let none, therefore, presume on his birth of good parents; let none presume on his being baptized by holy men. Let him that is baptized by holy men still beware lest he be not a Jacob, but an Esau. This would I say then, brethren, it is better to be baptized by men that seek their own and love the world, which is what the name of bond woman imports, and to be spiritually seeking the inheritance of Christ, so as to be as it were a son of Jacob by a bond woman, than to be baptized by holy men and to become proud, so as to be an Esau to be cast out, though born of a free woman. Hold ye this fast, brethren. We are not coaxing you, let none of your hope be in us; we flatter neither ourselves nor you; every man bears his own burden. It is our duty to speak, that we be not judged unhappily: yours to hear, and that with the heart, lest what we give be required of you; nay, that when it is required, it may be found a gain, not a loss.
5. The Lord says to Nicodemus, and explains to him: " Verily, verily, I say unto thee. Except a man be born again of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." Thou, says He, understandest a carnal generation, when thou sayest, Can a man return into his mother's bowels? The birth for the kingdom of God must be of water and of the Spirit. If one is born to the temporal inheritance of a human father, be he born of the bowels of a carnal mother; if one is born to the everlasting inheritance of God as his Father, be he born of the bowels of the Church. ^ father, as one that will die, begets a son by his wife to succeed him; but God begets of the Church sons, not to succeed Him, but to abide with Himself. And He goes on: ** I'hat which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." We are born spiritually then, and m spirit we are born by the word and sacrament. The Spirit is present that we may be born; the Spirit is invisibly present whereof thou art born, for thou too must be invisibly born. For He goes on to say: " Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. The Spirit bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest its voice, but knowest not whence it cometh, or whither itgoeth." None sees the Spirit, and Tractate XI I.]
Tractate XI I.]
how do we hear the Spirit's voice? There sounds a psalm, it is the Spirit's voice; the gospel sounds, it is the Spirit's voice; the divine word sounds, it is the Spirit's voice. "Thou hearest its voice, and knowest not whence it cometh, and whither it goeth.'' But if thou art born of the Spirit, thou too shalt be so, that one who is not born of the Spirit knows not, as for thee, whence thou comest, or whither thou goest. For He said, as He went on, "So is also every one that is born of the Spirit."
6. " Nicodemus answered and said unto Him, How can these things be?" And, in fact, in the carnal sense, he knew not how. In him occurred what the Lord had said; the Spirit's voice he heard, but knew not whence it came, and whither it was going. "Jesus answered and said unto him, Art thou a master in Israel, and knowest not these things? " Oh, brethren! what? do we think that the Lord meant to taunt scornfully this master of the Jews? The Lord knew what He was doing; He wished the man to be born of the Spirit. No man is born of the Spirit if he be not humble, for humility itself makes us to be born of the Spirit; " for the Lord is nigh to them that are of broken heart."' The man was puffed up with his mastership, and it appeared of some importance to himself that he was a teacher of the Jews. Jesus pulled down his pride, that he might be born of the Spirit: He taunted him as an unlearned man; not that the Lord wished to appear his superior. What comparison can there be, God compared to man, truth to falsehood? Christ greater than Nicodemus!
Ought this to be said, can it be said, is it to be thought? If it were said, "Christ is greater than angels, '^ it were ridiculous: for incomparably greater than every creature is He by whom every creature was made. But yet He rallies the man on his pride: "Art thou a master in Israel, and knowest not these things?" As if He said, Behold, thou knowest nothing, thou art a proud chief; be thou born of the Spirit: for if thou be born of the Spirit, thou wilt keep the ways of God, so as to follow Christ's humility. So, indeed, is He high above all angels, that, " being in the form of God, He thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but emptied Himself, taking upon Him the form of a servant, being made into the likeness of men, and found in fashion as a man: He humbled Himself, being made obedient unto death " (and lest any kind of death should please thee), "even the death of the cross.'* =" He hung on the cross, and they scoffed at Him. He could have come »Ps.
xxxiv. i8.
a Phil. ii. 6-8.
down from the cross; but He deferred, that He might rise again from the tomb. He, the Lord, bore with proud slaves; ^ the physician with the sick. If He did this, how ought they to act whom it behoves to be born of the Spirit! — if He did this, He who is the true Master in heaven, not of men only, but also of angels. For if the angels are learned, they are so by the Word of God. If they are learned by the Word of God, ask of what they are learned; and you shall find, " In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." The neck of man is done away with, only the hard and stiff neck, that it may be gentle to bear the yoke of Christ, of which it is said, " My yoke is easy, and my burden is light." ^ • 7. And He goes on, "If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not; how shall ye believe, if I tell you heavenly things?" What earthly things did He tell, brethren? " Except a man be born again; " is that an earthly thing? " The Spirit bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest its voice, and knowest not whence it cometh, or whither it goeth; " is that earthly? For if He spoke it of the wind, as some have understood it, when they were asked what earthly thing the Lord meant, when He said, " If I told you earthly things, and ye believe not; how shall ye believe, if I tell you heavenly things?" — when, I say, it was asked of certain men what "earthly thing" the Lord meant, being in difficulty, they said, What He said, "The Spirit bloweth where it listeth," and "its voice thou hearest, and knowest not whence it cometh, or whither it goeth," He said concerning the wind. Now what did He name earthly? He was speaking of the spiritual birth; and going on, saith, "So is every one that is born of the Spirit." Then, brethren, which of us does not see, for example, the south wind going from south to north, or another wind coming from east to west? How, then, know we not whence it cometh and whither it goeth? What earthly thing, then, did He tell, which men did not believe? Was it that which He had said about raising the temple again? Surely, for He had received His body of the earth, and that earth taken of the earthly body He was preparing to raise up. They did not believe Him as about to raise up earth. " If I told you earthly things," saith He, "and ye believe not; how shall ye believe if I tell you heavenly things? " That is, if ye believe not that I can raise up the temple cast down by you, how shall ye believe tliat men can be regenerated by the Spirit?
i Matt. xi. 30.
[Tractate XII.
8. And He goes on: "And no man hath ascended into heaven, but He that came down from heaven, the Son of man who is in heaven." Behold, He was here, and was also in heaven; was here in His flesh, in heaven by His divinity; yea, everywhere by His divinity. Born of a mother, not quitting the Father. Two nativities of Christ are understood: one divine, the other human: one, that by which we were to be made; the other, that by which we were to be made anew: botn marvellous; that without mother, this without father. But because He had taken a body of Adam, — for Mary was of Adam, — and was about to raise that same body again, it was an earthly thing He had said in saying, " Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up/' But this was a heavenly thing, when He said, " Except a man be born again of water and of the Spirit, he shall not see the kingdom of God." Come then,* brethren! God has willed to be the Son of man, and willed men to be sons of God. He came down for our sakes; let us ascend for His sake. For He alone descended and ascended, He who saith, " No man hath ascended into heaven, but He who came down from heaven." Are they not therefore to ascend into heaven whom He makes sons of God? Certainly they are: this is the promise to us, " They shall be equal to the angels of God."' Then how is it that no man ascends, but He that descended? Because one only descended, only one ascends. What of the rest? What are we to understand, but that they shall be His members, that one may ascend? Therefore it follows that " no man hath ascended into heaven, but He who came down from heaven, the Son of man who is in heaven." Dost thou marvel that He was both here and in heaven? Such He made His disciples. Hear the Apostle Paul saying, " But our conversation is in heaven."^ If the Apostle Paul, a man, walked in the flesh on earth, and yet had his conversation in heaven, was the God of heaven and earth not able to be both in heaven and on earth?
9. Therefore, if none but He descended and ascended, what hope is there for the rest? The hope for the rest is this, that He came down in order that in Him and with Him they might be one, who should ascend through Him. " He saith not, And to seeds," saith the apostle, " as in many; but as in one, And to thy seed, which is Christ." And to believers he saith, "And ye are Christ's; and if Christ's, then are Abraham's seed. "3 What he said to be one, that he said that we all are.
' Matt. xxii. 30.
Hence, in the Psalms, many sometimes sing, to show that one is made of many; sometimes one sings, to show what is made of many. Therefore was it only one that was healed in the pool; and whoever else went down into it was not healed. Now this one shows forth the oneness of the Church. Woe to them who hate unity, and make to themselves parties among men! Let them hear him whowished to make them one, in one, for one: let them hear him who says. Be not ye making many: " I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase. But neither he that planteth is anything, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase."* They were saying, " I am of Paul, I of Apollos, I of Cephas." And he says, "Is Christ divided?" Be ye in one, be one thing, be one person: "No man hath ascended into heaven, but He who came down from heaven. " Lo! we wish to be thine, they said to Paul. And he said to them, I will not that ye be Paul's, but be ye His whose is Paul together with you.
10. For He came down and died, and by that death delivered us from death: being slain by death. He slew death. And you know, brethren, that this death entered into the world through the devil's envy. "God made not death," saith the Scripture, " nor delights He in the destruction of the living; but He created all things to be." But what saith it here? "But by the devil's envy, death entered into the whole world.'' ^ Tothe death offered for our entertainment by the devil, man would not come by constraint; for the devil had not the power of forcing, but only cunning to persuade. Hadst thou not consented, the devil had brought in nothing: thy own consenting, O man, led thee todeath. Of the mortal are mortals born; from immortals we are become mortals. From Adam all men are mortal; but Jesus the Son of God, the Word of God, bV which all things were made, the only Son equal with the Father, was made mortal: " for the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us," 11. He endured death, then; but death He hanged on the cross, and mortal men are delivered from death. Tne Lord calls to mind a great matter, which was done in a figure with them of old: "And as Moses," saith He, " lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up; that everyone who believethon Him may not perish, but have everlasting life." A great mystery is here, as they who.read know. Again, let them hear, as well they who have 4 I Cor. ill. 6, 7.
5 Wisd. 1. 2.
Tractate XII.]