However, it is important to understand what they themselves believed, apart from the opinion of the crowd, namely either Elijah, or Jeremiah, or John the Baptist. Perhaps Elijah, because he was taken up to heaven. But Elijah is not the Christ: he is taken up, while the Christ returns. Elijah, I say, is taken up, while the Christ did not consider himself equal to God in robbery: Elijah is vindicated by fire, while the Christ preferred to heal his persecutors rather than destroy them. But why did they think Jeremiah? Perhaps because he was sanctified in his mother's womb. But this is not Jeremiah: he was sanctified, this one sanctifies: his sanctification began from the body, this one is holy from the holy. Why did the people think that even John, unless perhaps because he, being in his mother's womb, felt the presence of the Lord? But this is not John: he worshipped in the womb, this one was worshipped: he baptized in water, Christ in the Spirit: he advised repentance, this one forgave sins.
97. And therefore Peter did not wait for the people's opinion, but spoke out his own, saying: You are the Christ, the Son of the living God (John VIII, 12). He is always and never began to be, and will never cease to be. But the grace of Christ is great, who gave to his disciples almost all of his own titles. I am, he said, the light of the world (Matthew V, 14): and yet he conferred the name upon his disciples, saying: You are the light of the world. I am the living bread (John VI, 1); and, we all are one bread... (1 Corinthians X, 17). I am the true vine (John XV, 1). And to you, he says: I planted you as a fruitful vine, all true (Jeremiah II, 21). Christ is the rock: for they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ (1 Corinthians X, 4): he also did not deny his disciple the grace of this name (Matthew XVI, 18); so that he himself may be Peter, having the solidity of constancy and the firmness of faith from the rock.
98. Therefore, strive to be a rock yourself. Thus, seek the rock not outside you, but within you. Your rock is your actions, your rock is your mind. Upon this rock, your house is built, so that no spiritual wickedness can shake it. Your rock is your faith, the foundation of the Church is faith. If you are a rock, you will be in the Church, for the Church is built upon the rock. If you are in the Church, the gates of hell will not prevail against you. The gates of hell, the gates of death are: but the gates of death, the gates of the Church cannot be.
99. But what are the gates of death, that is, the gates of hell, if not each individual sin? If you have committed fornication, you have entered the gates of death. If you have violated faith, you have penetrated the gates of hell. If you have committed mortal sin, you have entered the gates of death. But God is powerful, who can exalt you from the gates of death, so that you may proclaim all His praises in the gates of the daughter of Zion. The gates of the Church, however, are the gates of chastity, the gates of justice, which the righteous are accustomed to enter, saying: Open to me the gates of justice and I will enter and confess to the Lord (Ps. 117:19). But as the gate of death is, so also is the gate of hell; and so also is the gate of justice, the gate of God. For this gate of the Lord, the just shall enter by it (ibid., 20). Therefore, flee the persistence of offenses, lest the gates of hell prevail against you; for if sin has dominion over you, the gate of death will prevail. Therefore, flee contentions, dissensions, clamor, and the tumult of discord; lest you fall into the entrance of the gates of death. For the Lord Jesus Christ did not desire to be preached first, lest any clamor should arise. He admonished his disciples not to tell anyone about this, because
(Vers. 22.)
(Verse 22.) The Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the chief priests, and elders, and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day rise again.
100. And perhaps for this reason the Lord added this, because He knew that the disciples would find it difficult to believe in His passion and resurrection. And therefore, He preferred to be the witness of His passion and resurrection, so that faith would arise from deeds, not from discordant hearing. Therefore, Christ did not want to boast, but rather chose to appear ignoble, so that He could undergo the passion. And you, who were born in ignoble circumstances, do you boast? You must walk the same path that Christ walked. This is his recognition, this is his imitation, through ignobility and good reputation; so that you may glory in the cross of the Lord, as he himself has gloried. Thus walked Paul, and for this reason he boasts, saying: But far be it from me to boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ (Gal. 6:14).
101. But let us see why, according to Matthew, the disciples were warned not to tell anyone that he is the Christ, while it is written here that they were rebuked for telling anyone that he would suffer many things and rise again (Matt. XVI, 20). You see that in the one name of Christ, everything is included. He is indeed the Christ who was born of the Virgin, he is the one who performed miracles among the people, he is the one who died for our sins, and he rose from the dead. If you deny one of these, you have denied your salvation. For even heretics seem to have Christ for themselves; for no one denies the name of Christ: but he denies Christ, who does not confess all the things that are of Christ. Therefore, for many reasons, he commands his disciples to be silent; so that he may deceive the prince of the world, so that he may avoid boasting, so that he may teach humility; at the same time, so that the uneducated disciples, who are still imperfect, are not overwhelmed by the great burdens of preaching.
102. Now let us consider why even unclean spirits are commanded to be silent. But Scripture has also revealed this to us, because God said to the sinner: Why do you declare my justices (Psalm XLIX, 16)? So that no one may follow the one who preaches while he himself is erring; for the wicked teacher is the devil, who often mixes falsehoods with truths, in order to cover his testimony of deceit with the appearance of truth.
103. Also, let us consider whether he first commanded his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Christ, or whether he had commanded them before when he appointed the twelve apostles, saying to them: 'Do not go into the ways of the Gentiles, and do not enter the cities of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel . . . heal the sick . . . cleanse the lepers . . . cast out demons . . . and into whatever city . . .' . . . intraveritis, discite quis in ea dignus sit, atque ibi manete (Marc. X, 5-11) . Itaque nec hic mandatum videtur, ut Christum Dei Filium praedicarent.
104. Therefore, the order of the debate is the order of the treatise, and for this reason, when some people from the nations are called to the Church, we must form the series of precepts in such a way that, first, we teach that there is one God, the author of the world and of all things, in whom we live and move and have our being, and of whose kind we are; so that he may be loved by us not only for the gifts of light and life, but also for a certain kinship of species. Then let us destroy that opinion which exists concerning idols, so that gold, silver, or wood cannot possess divine power. Once you are persuaded that there is one God, then you will understand through Christ the salvation given to us; beginning from the things he did in the body and describing those divine things, so that it seems he was more than a man, conquering the power of death and being raised from the dead; for gradually faith grows, so that he is believed to have been above men, God, unless you prove that he could not have done those things without divine power, how can you prove that there was divine power in him?
105. But perhaps we are given too little authority and credibility: by the Law, we consider the discourse of the Apostle spoken among the Athenians, who, if he wanted to destroy the ceremonies of idols from the beginning, the ears of the Gentiles would have rejected his discourse. Therefore, he starts from one God, the operator of the world, saying: God who made the world, and all things that are in it (Acts 17:24). It could not be denied that there is one operator of the world, one God, one creator of all things. He added that the Lord of heaven and earth does not deign to dwell in man-made things. Then he said that it is not at all likely that the power of divinity is contained within the material of gold and silver boxes crafted by humans, teaching that the remedy for error is the study of repentance. Then he came to Christ, but he preferred to call him a man rather than God, saying: 'For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed' (Acts 17:31). For whoever speaks should consider the persons of the listeners; so that he is not laughed at before being heard. For how would the Athenians believe that the Word became flesh and the Virgin conceived by the Holy Spirit, who were mocking because they had heard of the resurrection of the dead? However, even Dionysius the Areopagite believed, and others believed in the man; so that they would believe in God. What difference does it make in what order one believes? Perfection is not sought in the beginnings, but it is achieved through the beginnings. Therefore, the Athenians taught us with such a precept: such an order must be kept among us Gentiles.
106. But when the apostles spoke to the Jews, they said that he (Christ) was the one who had been promised to us in the prophetic oracles: whom they did not name as the Son of God by their own authority, but as a proven man, a righteous man, a man raised from the dead, the man of whom it was said in the prophets: You are my Son, today I have begotten you (Acts 2:22, 3:14, 13:33, from Psalm 2:7). Therefore, also learn from the authority of divine speech for those things that are difficult to believe, and designate his promised coming by the voice of the prophets. Also, teach the resurrection, which has been understood long before by the testimonies of the Scriptures, not unusual and common like with others, so that in the assertion of the resurrected body itself, you may acquire the testimony of the eternal divinity. For when you have proven that the bodies of the others have undergone corruption after death, you certainly prove that this one, of whom it is said, 'You will not allow your Holy One to see corruption' (Psalm 16:10), is free from human frailty, surpassing the merits of human condition, to be attributed more to God than to men.
107. If the catechumen is to be instructed towards the sacraments of the faithful, it must be said that there is one God from whom all things are, and one Jesus Christ through whom all things are (1 Corinthians 8:6): not that there are two lords, but that the Father is perfect and the Son is perfect; but that the Father and the Son are of the same substance: the eternal Word of the eternal God, not spoken but active; begotten from the Father, not uttered by word. Therefore, the apostles are forbidden from preaching the Son of God so that they may preach the crucified one afterwards. This is the glory of faith, if you truly understand the cross of Christ. Other crosses are of no benefit to me, only the cross of Christ is beneficial to me, and truly beneficial. Through it, the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world (Galatians 6:14). If the world has been crucified to me, I know that it is dead, I do not love it; I know that it is passing away, I do not desire it; I know that corruption consumes this world, I avoid it as something foul, I flee from it as a plague, I abandon it as something harmful.
108. But not everyone can immediately believe in salvation rejected by the world through the cross. Therefore, it is true that through the histories of the Greeks this was possible, as sometimes even the Apostle urges unbelievers (Act. XVII, 28): nor does he shy away from poetic verses, in order to destroy the fables of the poets. For if it is recalled that the Greeks assert that legions and great peoples were often liberated by offering the deaths of some, if it is remembered that the emperor's daughter was called to sacrifice for the sake of transferring the Greek army: if we consider our own experience, that the blood of bulls and goats, and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on the defiled, sanctify for the purification of the flesh (Hebr. IX, 13), as it is written to the Hebrews: if it is asserted that a pestilence contracted by certain people in a region is resolved by the death of one person, which either prevailed by reason or was confirmed by arrangement, so that it could be more easily believed in the cross of the Lord: it will be inclined for those who cannot deny their own things, to confirm ours.
109. But since no man could be so great as to take away the sins of the whole world, neither Enoch, nor Abraham, nor Isaac, who, although he offered himself to death, was nevertheless saved (Gen. XXII, 9); because he could not abolish all sins, (for what man could be so great in whom the sins of all might die?) therefore not one from among the people, not one from the number, but the Son of God was chosen by God the Father, who, being above all, could offer himself for all: it was necessary for him to die, so that being stronger than death, he might free others, He became. Among the dead, free without help (Psalm 87:6), free from death without the help of man or any creature. And truly free, who has rejected the servitude of desires, has not known the bonds of death.
Book Seven
(Vers. 27)
(Verse 27) But I tell you truly, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God.
The Lord always raises future rewards as an incentive for virtue and teaches that the contempt of worldly things is useful. He also supports the weakness of the human mind with present rewards. For it is difficult to bear the cross and offer one's soul to dangers and death, to deny what you are when you want to be what you are not. And rarely, even though virtue is lofty, does it exchange the present for the future. It seems difficult for humans to purchase hope with dangers and to gain the profit of future life at the expense of the present. Therefore, a good and moral teacher should not be broken by despair or boredom; because the sweet allure of life also soothes a steady emotion, and promises continuous success for the faithful: for consolations freeze under the fear of death, and a great love for life with difficulty balances the blandishments of hope with the terror of desired salvation. Therefore, you have no reason to complain, you have no reason to make excuses: the judge of all has given both reward to virtue and remedy to weakness; so that weakness is sustained in the present, and virtue in the future. If you are strong, despise death; if you are weak, flee. But no one can flee from death, unless they follow life. Your life is Christ, He is the life that does not know how to die.
So if we want to not fear death, let us stand where Christ is, so that it can be said of us: Truly, there are some standing here who will not taste death. It is not enough to only stand, but rather to stand where Christ is; for only those who can stand with Christ cannot taste death. From the nature of His words, we can understand that those who seem to have deserved to be associated with Christ will not even have a slight sense of death. Certainly, the death of the body is tasted by being offered, while the life of the soul is held in possession.
But what is it to taste death? It may be that just as bread is life, so bread may also be death. For there are those who eat the bread of sorrow (Psalm 126:2) ; there are also peoples of Ethiopia who have taken the dragon as food (Psalm 73:14) . May it be far from us to devour the venom of the dragon; for we have true bread, that bread which descends from heaven. He who keeps the things that are written eats that bread. Therefore, there are those who do not taste death, until they see the kingdom of God. There are also those who do not see death, as it is written: Who is the man who lives, and does not see death? (Psalm 88:49)
4. But who is the person who does not die, since resurrection cannot happen unless someone has died? Although we have heard that Enoch and Elijah did not experience bodily death, and the Lord said about the evangelist John, 'So I desire him to remain until I come' (John 21:22), yet because we do not think that this is expressed only about John, but rather that it is a general commandment about many, here it is not the death of the body but of the soul that is denied. For there are those who are dead while still alive, because there are those who are alive but dead, like that widow who, while alive, is considered dead (1 Timothy 5:6), as it is written: 'Let death come upon them; let them go down alive to Sheol' (Psalm 55:15). If therefore someone who is alive descends into hell (for he descends into the dwelling place of hell by the sin of death), there are certainly those for whom the order of living is not interrupted even in the death of the body, such as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, whom we know to live by the authority of divine judgment; for since God is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, He is not the God of the dead, but of the living (Matthew 22:32).
5. Therefore, he speaks not of one, but of many; for neither did Peter die, of whom, according to the saying of the Lord, the gates of hell could not prevail (Matthew 16:18). Nor did James and John, the sons of thunder, die, who, being taken up for the use of heavenly glory, are not subject to earthly things, but rule over them. Therefore, be like Peter, devout, faithful, peaceful, so that you may open the gates of the Church and escape the gates of death. Be the son of thunder. You say: How can I be the son of thunder? You can be, if not on earth, but if you rest in the heart of Christ. You can be the son of thunder if earthly things do not move you, but rather you shake them with the power of your mind. Let the earth tremble, but not capture you; let your flesh fear the power of your soul and be subdued. You will be the son of thunder if you are a son of the Church. And let Christ say to you from the cross: Behold your mother (John 19:27). Let it be said to the Church: Behold your son (cf. John 19:26); for then you begin to be a son of the Church, when you see Christ as the victorious one on the cross. For whoever considers the cross as a scandal is a Jew, and is not a son of the Church; whoever considers the cross as foolishness is a Greek. But he is a son of the Church who regards the cross as a triumph, who recognizes the cross of Christ triumphant.
So that you may know that Peter, James, and John did not taste death, they deserved to see the glory of the resurrection; for only these three were taken up and led to the mountain after these words. What does he mean by saying 'eight days after these words'? Perhaps because the one who hears and believes the words of Christ will see the glory of Christ at the time of the resurrection; for the resurrection took place on the eighth day; hence many psalms are titled 'for the eighth day' (Psalm 6 and 11). Perhaps to show us that what he had said, that whoever would lose his soul for the word of God would save it, for he will restore his promises in the resurrection.