Sermon 159/B
Sermon of the blessed Augustine on the words of the apostle:
O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and the knowledge of God,
And from Psalm 59: God, you have rejected us
and you have destroyed us, you were angry and have had mercy on us,
It is good for me that You have humbled me,
that I may learn your justifications
The depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God is unsearchable.
Divine readings, which nourish us spiritually, remind us that we must preach to you who are expectant and attentive, and as from the Lord's storehouse, of which we are stewards, to set something before those who are hungry. The Apostolic reading was pronounced to us in these words, which your holiness remembers with us: O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out. For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor, or who has first given to him and it shall be recompensed to him again? For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things, to whom be glory forever, amen. But that the Apostle might exclaim and, as if terrified by a certain depth of God's judgments, say: O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God, he had previously said: God has concluded all in sin, that he might have mercy upon all. Therefore, after this statement where he says: God has concluded all under sin, that he might have mercy upon all, because truly there is a mysterious depth—that men were first manifestly guilty in their own conscience so that they could be helped upon confessing—he exclaimed: O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God. Where is the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God? In that God concluded all in sin, that he might have mercy upon all. In what sin? Of unbelief. For he used this word: God has concluded, he says, all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all. Therefore, may the Lord our God himself, whose riches the Apostle praises, be present and deign to impart to us some part of these secret and profound riches of his, so that we may somehow express what we feel is inexpressible, not to explain it, but to commend the inexplicable. For it seems that by a certain human weakness, the Apostle, as it were, failed in explaining what he rejoiced in contemplating. He saw something which he could not express in words, he perceived in his heart that for which words were inadequate, and he found no way to make us attentive to what he saw, except to exclaim and elevate our hearts by saying: O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God, so that raised, our hearts might be directed to Him whose riches he saw, and not to the mouth of the weak steward who could not explain those riches. Therefore, let us do this to the best of our ability, and we have directed your hearts to Him to whom we all belong and under whom alone we are all fellow students in this school, where the riches of God are, where the depth of riches is, where his unsearchable judgments and his ways past finding out are, where he concluded all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all.
"Transgression preceded, humiliation followed."
He who enclosed all in unbelief seems to be angry, but he who has mercy on all is calm. Therefore, the chapter of the Apostle agrees with the psalm: God, you have rejected us and destroyed us, you were angry and have had mercy on us. Hear the angry and merciful one. God enclosed all in unbelief, that he may have mercy on all. What did the Lord our God want to do? First to be angry, to reject, to humble, and afterwards to help, to call back the estranged, to hear the converted, to assist the one heard, to change the one assisted, to crown the one changed. Connect other testimonies of the Scriptures. The voice of a certain man laboring on this earth, that is, Adam himself, the human race - which the second man from heaven did not leave, so that they first became earthly, afterwards celestial. For because they were humbled, hence earthly; because they were cast down, hence earthly; because they were repelled, hence earthly; but because he who repelled and cast down and humbled had mercy on us, hence celestial. Let us therefore hear the voice of this man elsewhere saying: Before I was humbled, I sinned. Groaning in his humility, he acknowledged his sin; he attributed iniquity to himself, justice to God. For what does he say? Before I was humbled - which is the penalty that God inflicted -, he says, I sinned. So that God, who humbled me, may not seem unjust, my sin preceded, my humiliation followed. Therefore, my Lord God is a just judge. For I would not come to this humiliation unless I first sinned. And because this humiliation indeed seems to resonate with the anger of God's judge, but pertains to mercy, hear his voice elsewhere: It is good for me that you have humbled me, that I may learn your righteousness. Let your charity understand what he says: Before I was humbled, I sinned. He seems to groan in the punishment, to sigh in the chains, to seek help from him in this mortality and earthly infirmity by confessing, whom he had offended by sinning. For these words sound thus: Before I was humbled, I sinned, that is: I do not attribute my humiliation to you, my God: I did what was evil, you did what was just.
God moved by mercy humbles us.
These words match those words which we have sung. For he who says: "God, you have rejected us and destroyed us," he also says: "Before I was humbled, I sinned." For you have heard that God rejected; you have heard that God cast down, that is, from a height he threw to the ground. You have heard. Seek the cause, why God did this: "Before I was humbled," he says, "I sinned." You have heard your preceding sin and the consequent justice of God; hear also because even the justice of God itself, which humbled you, not only indicates the severity of a just judge but also the mercy of the compassionate one. For he says, as I mentioned a little before: "It is good for me that you have humbled me, so that I may learn your justifications." Therefore, what, my brothers? Was God angry when he humbled, or did he show compassion? If humiliation benefited us nothing, let it be attributed to the excessive severity of God; although, if so, we could not complain about his injustice. For the sinner must receive his deserved merit; let the proud and unjust not flatter himself; first let him find out what he deserves, so that he may thus recognize what God has given. Does the heart of any sinful man dare to renounce anything but punishment, to renounce anything but the most just penalty? Or if punishment has followed man's iniquity, can it be said to a just judge: "You did wrong to condemn a sinner"? Therefore, as sinners, let us renounce this, let us confess in our punishments both our sins and the justice of our God: for in this way we will deserve to find the mercy of God in our very punishment. This, dearest brothers, no one finds unless he has first humbled himself. And because I am about to say as I can, I do not think any of you will understand what I am about to say unless he first suppresses the smoke of pride, by which the eyes of the mind are darkened, so that the mercy of God in the punishment itself can be understood.
Moved by love, the father punishes the degenerate son.
But first consider this in daily life itself - for from there you can have a way to understand, because He did not abandon human mortality - with certain analogies in their very actions, to show us that punishment can be inflicted mercifully. What shall I say? You give discipline to your servant, and in giving discipline, surely in that very act of punishing, you are showing mercy, but I do not mean to the servant: perhaps you are so angry with the servant that you hate him. Indeed, you should not do this if you are a Christian; you should not do this if you consider yourself a human being; you should not do this if you consider that "servant" and "master" are indeed different names, but not "human" and "human." You should not persecute a sinning servant with hatred. But since this is often the way humans act, let us reject that analogy and use the son. No one can help but love their children: for a man is not to be praised who loves his son. For if you love those who love you, what reward will you get, says the Lord, do not even tax collectors do the same? How much more, then, should those love their children, whom they beget to succeed them. No one can, by the very right of nature, hate the one they have begotten. Nor is a man to be praised for what is found in beasts. No one praises a man for loving his own children. You find this not only in the mildest of animals: the ferocity of lions is softened towards their offspring, tigers love their cubs, serpents nurture their eggs and hatchlings. Therefore, if those things which seem to be savage and harsh in nature do not retain harshness and savagery towards what they beget, what great thing does a man do by loving his son? But I said these things, brothers, so that you may see that punishment of a merciful person can exist from the example of children, from that matter which no one can hate. Therefore, someone sees his son becoming prideful, exalting himself against his father, usurping more than he ought, wanting to waste himself in frivolous pleasures, wanting to squander what he does not yet possess; and while he does this, he is happy, laughing, rejoicing, exulting; but the father restrains him through reprimand, punishment, and lashes, removes the laughter, brings in weeping, and it seems that he has taken away something good and brought in something bad - see what he has taken away: joy, see what he has brought in: groaning - and yet, if he had let that unpunished joy continue, he would be cruel; because he forced him to weep, he is found to be merciful. Therefore, if a father who forces weeping is found to be merciful, why do we not understand that our Creator could have done what we sang: God, you have rejected us and humbled us? But why this? Is it for destruction, is it for perdition? Listen to what follows: You were angry and you had mercy on us. Why is He justly angry with you? Connect this, since we have said: Before I was humbled, I sinned. What advantage do you gain from being rejected and humbled? It is good for me that you humbled me, so that I might learn your statutes.
Man subject to God, master of visible creatures.
Let us now turn our mind to that of the apostle: God has concluded all in unbelief so that He may have mercy on all. The first sin of man was pride: thus we read in Genesis, thus we find in other Scripture. What do we read in Genesis? That man, created and formed, was placed in paradise under a certain law, under a certain command; a command that showed him this: that he was made great, so that he might have someone greater over him. Therefore, God commanded that humility be always retained by the man subject to Him, that is, that the humility of the man constituted under God be preserved. Man was indeed made in the image of God, and as it is written elsewhere, He gave him the power of containing all things: everything was under him, but above him was the One who made all things. Thus, man ought to have regarded those things that were under him, so that he might more regard the One who was above him; for clinging to the superior, he would more securely possess the inferior; but departing from the superior, he would be subjected to the inferior. Just as if we suppose three men: one man having a servant and a master, as often happens that peculiar servants have servants. Consider this: he has a servant, he has a master; subject to one, superior to another; he is superior to the servant, inferior to his master. We have placed a third as the servant of a servant, but the first as the master of a master, and the middle one both servant and master: master of his servant and servant of his master. That third is only a servant, the first is only a master, the middle one is both a servant and a master. And he securely possesses his servant if he does not offend his master. And, indeed, we have mentioned three men: all are of the same kind, all subsist from the same substance and nature. Not so are those three: God, man, and the creature inferior to man. For the Creator and the created, the maker and the made, the craftsman and the work, the creator and the creature are of a different kind and not of the same substance. However, those things which were created are generally called created things, but they differ by natures, orders, merits, and places. For first, there are spiritual things, and afterward, carnal things, those that God created, that God made. Spiritual things have the first place, while corporal things have the last place. The human mind is something spiritual, where the likeness and image of God is imprinted; whereas all things we discern as subject to the senses of the body: they are known to all, they are seen, heard, smelled, tasted, touched; hard and soft, hot and cold, rough and smooth, all these are called corporal things, and are inferior. Above all these things, man is constituted, but according to the mind, according to the intellect, according to that which in him is made in the image and likeness of God. For God is not circumscribed and enclosed by bodily form, such that He has a back on one side and eyes on another side, but He is a certain light—not the kind we see with our eyes, nor if you extend this kind we see with our eyes through the imagination of your thoughts and make fields of light, mountains of light, and trees of light, by flying through the vanities of your thoughts. Do you wish to understand spiritual light? Seek from where you understand.
Concerning knowledge which arises through the senses and concerning knowledge through intelligible light.
Understand this very light, I say, with which you understand. What did I say? You see white and black with bodily eyes, you are helped externally by light either of the sun or moon or lamp or any other little source of light. If that external light did not help your eyes, your eyes would be open in vain and would be called lights without cause. But what is open and healthy in you, that is the eye, and what is brought near for assistance externally, that is light, and what exists for you to see, that is colors and shapes, you know and distinguish. We have said this about the eyes. You hear voices, you know from where you hear. The eyes do not hear, nor do the ears see. Something is lacking to the eyes for sensing voices, and something is lacking to the ears for sensing colors. But nothing of these is lacking to you, because you see through the eyes, you hear through the ears. Therefore you recognize both what smells, and which member you bring near to sense the odor, you know. For you do not bring the ear near to sense the sweetness of the odor, but you bring what God created for you for smelling. Nor, when you want to taste some flavor, do you place it on the ears or on the eye: you know there is no sense there that discerns flavors. And if you wish to sense whether something is hard or soft, whether it is cold or hot? You know that you can sense touch with your whole body. You know these things. Well. Attend to that which is interior: who is this inside to whom all these senses report what humans sense? For these things are like instruments, these are as if subjected into servitude. There is some inner sense, an unknown commander to whom these messengers report whatever they find outside. But that interior one, who distinguishes all these things, is certainly superior to all these things. Therefore the eye has what to see, the ear what to hear, the nostrils what to smell, the mouth what to taste, the hands what to touch, and has the mind nothing that it can regard by itself alone? The mind indeed senses white and black, but with the eyes reporting; it itself senses in voices the melodious and the harsh, but with the ears reporting; it senses in odors the sweet-smelling and the foul-smelling, but with the nose reporting; it senses the sweet and the bitter, but with the mouth reporting; it senses the hard and the soft, but when the handling hand has reported. Therefore it can sense so many and various things with the body reporting: is it not able to sense anything by itself, with no body part reporting to it? Therefore seek what it senses by itself, and you will find where the image of God is. It sensed white and black through the eyes, the ears reported the melodious and the absurd. And lest I run again through each of these things that lie beside the body, the body's members reported. The just and the unjust, do the eyes report these? The mind discerns the just and the unjust and says: "This is just, this is unjust." Seek who reported it? If justice is color, the eyes reported it; if justice is sound, the ears reported it; if it is a scent, the nose reported it; if it is a taste, the mouth reported it; if it is hardness or softness, the hands reported it. If it is none of these, who reported it, except the inner light? Therefore this nature, this substance which you see as excellent, about which, if I wished to speak more abundantly, time would not suffice, is something interior, something divine made in us in the image and likeness of God, above all bodily things, and was so made that every bodily creature would be subjected to serve it, yet the mind itself is not God. For if it were God, would it have sinned? For God is unchangeable. Our mind, however, because it was created, because it was made, is not that which God is. It is changeable. We see even now the changes themselves. It is wise, it is foolish; it remembers, it forgets; it wills, it does not will; it rejoices, it is sad. These changes do not befall God, who is above the mind, and is the creator of the mind.
We offend God: through the body we are tortured.
But yet all this that I said above is the body; it is below God, below the lord and above the servant. These are three things, of which I was speaking a little before. If, therefore, three men, though all are men, are ordered by a certain condition of this life, so that one of them is only a lord, another is only a servant, and the other is both the servant of the lord and the lord of a servant; how do you think, and how much easier and more distinctly do you suppose the whole creation to be ordained? The nature and substance of the mind are placed under God, the nature of the whole body is placed under the mind. But as I was saying: then he safely possesses his servant, if he does not offend his lord, so that mind, if it does not by a certain pride, by which it wished to be of its own power, offend its lord, the whole nature of the body would always be subjected to it like a servant. But because by pride it offended the Lord, the creature of the body, which was given for service, was made for the torment of punishment, for the torment of vengeance. For by the difficulty of the body now the mind is tortured, whereas before it dominated the whole nature of the body. Just as if that man – for from here you better accept a clearer comparison, because even this itself, which we understand with difficulty, pertains to the punishment by which we were humbled: we give some evidence from custom. Place those three servants again before your eyes, because you understand this with difficulty, since it is more distinct; for these things are more distinct, the more they are different: for God is far different from the mind, and the mind far different from the body. But truly in those three, there is man, and man, and man. The nature is not different, but the condition makes the order; yet because those are in our habit, we more easily understand them, than those which are more distinct. Therefore now understand this, which we say. Make him in the middle – because he is a servant in such a way that he is also a lord; he is a lord so that he is also a servant: a servant of the superior, a lord of the inferior – therefore make him to have offended his lord. How did he offend? By a certain pride. For he considered that he also had a servant, and dared to raise himself against his lord, by that very fact by which he seemed to have the servant in his power. He raised himself against his lord, his lord commanded that he be beaten by his servant. For the lord of the lord was the lord of both. The servant did not have his servant in his power as much as the lord of both had them. When could he despise that lord, not a servant of anyone, so as not to beat his own lord, at the command of the greater lord of both? Therefore, our God commanded, because we offended Him, that we be tortured by our body; and our body became mortal, and we began to suffer penalties from there, from where we dared to be proud against the Lord. Therefore, now we are beaten by our servant. We are tortured in the pains of our flesh; the Lord has humbled us, so that we are punished by the servant.
Let us serve the Lord, whom we desire to be served by the body.
Why then was he humbled, that we might be chastised by a servant? Because we first transgressed: Before I was humbled, I transgressed. Therefore, being placed under the lash of your servant, cry out to the Lord your God, and say to Him: It is good for me that You have humbled me so that I may learn your statutes. What are these statutes of yours? Because, just as I have the body as a servant, you also have me as a servant. And just as I seek for the body to obey me, so I ought to obey you. Therefore I have learned your statutes from this, as if my Lord speaks to me from above and says: "O wicked servant, at least now in this state of humiliation, acknowledge whom you have offended and to whom you have been subjected. Certainly, you are tormented by your servant: you have a body and you want it to obey you in all things; you want it to follow when you lift your hand, to follow when you lift your foot. Even though I wish for you to be beaten by your servant, your servant still serves you." For when we want to walk and move our body, we command the feet, and they obey; we command the eye to see when we wish to look at something: it does not contradict us, it turns, it reports back to us. We bring the ear to sounds, it immediately reports what is sounding; we lift the hand to handle something, it does not resist. In that the body serves us, it indicates that we are its masters; in that it resists us, it indicates that we have a Master. But let us see in what matters your body does not obey you. For example, you can walk ten thousand paces, but you want twenty: it does not obey. You can walk fifty thousand, but you want sixty: it does not obey. You want to stay awake for two nights: it obeys in part, in another part it does not obey. You want to move your hand to lift something: you lift some things; in other things you try: it does not obey. Add to this so many troubling difficulties of its infirmity and corruption which cannot be counted, and observe how the body, being corrupted, burdens the soul. Thus, in what it serves you, it shows that you are its master; in what it resists you, it reminds you to serve your Master. Therefore, say to your Lord: It is good for me that You have humbled me so that I may learn your statutes. How do you learn His statutes? So that now you are not ashamed to serve your Lord, just as you want your body to serve you. And you begin now to serve your Lord, but still, just as you wish, your body does not yet fully serve you. For you believe, you who were unbelieving, you follow the precepts of your Lord, you walk the path, but justice is not yet perfected in you: for this reason, obedience in your servant is not yet perfected; there still remains some bitterness, lest this world should become sweet to you and that you do not desire your Lord who made the world.
Christ the Lord is our only hope.
Cry out from the ends of the earth to Him, O Church spread throughout the world, say in the psalm: From the ends of the earth I have cried to You, when my heart was overwhelmed. These things are written in the psalm: You have lifted me up on the rock, You have led me, because You have become my hope. For God has exalted us on the rock. On what rock? The rock was Christ, says the Apostle. And how did He become our hope there? Because our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we were made, He Himself is the Word of God, through whom all things were made. He took flesh from our mortal mass, and He took the death which pertained to the punishment of sin, He did not take sin, but in the mercy of freeing us from sin, He gave His own flesh up to death. For He was not given up unwillingly; He would not have been crucified unless He had given Himself up. Thus, when Judas betrayed Him, he betrayed one who was willing. Yet Judas is not credited with the merit of Christ's will, but with the merit of his own avarice. For when he betrayed the Lord, he did not consider our salvation, but his own greed and treachery. For Judas betrayed Him, Christ betrayed Himself, and the Father of Christ betrayed Him. They all seemed to do one thing. They did one thing, but not with one intention. The Father handed over the Son by mercy, the Son handed over Himself by the same mercy, Judas handed over his Master by treachery. It seems there is no difference between handing over and handing over, but there is a great difference between mercy and treachery. How did the Father hand Him over? Listen to the Apostle: He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all. How did the Son hand Himself over? The same Apostle says of the Lord Himself: Who loved me and gave Himself for me. Therefore, He gave this flesh to be killed, so you might not fear anything for your flesh. He showed in His resurrection after three days, what you should hope for at the end of the world. Therefore, He leads you forth, because He has become your hope. You now walk toward the hope of resurrection, but if our head had not first risen, the other members would not find what to hope for.