SERMON 162/C
"Do not hope to find perfect justice (or sanctity) in human affairs, much less in complex societies. It is Christ alone who gives the perfection that we seek; He, who is the just judge, will distribute to each according to his deeds."
Sermon of Blessed Augustine
on the words of the Apostle to the Galatians
where Paul rebukes Peter,
Where first he teaches what kind of person a bishop ought to be.
A just bishop makes the people of God joyful.
We know, brothers, and with sure love we trust that you rejoice with us when you see righteousness in us. For it is fitting that, when the holy ones of God see righteous priests, they rejoice over their shepherds and, in turn, gladden them with their conduct. And so also we have just sung to the Lord our God, with one voice and one heart: "May Your priests be clothed with righteousness, and Your saints will exult in joy"; seeing them clothed in righteousness, they will indeed rejoice with true joy and entirely genuine affection, without any flattery. Therefore, that you may exult with joy, holy ones of God, it is necessary that we be clothed with righteousness and offer you an example for every good work. But you who wish to rejoice over us, pray for us. For righteousness must be put on, as we have sung. And who gives this garment, if not He who, after the son's error and perdition, brought forth the first robe? For in the very matter that righteousness is commended as a garment, it is implied that we do not have it from ourselves ...
A fragment preserved by Bede.
It is therefore necessary for a bishop to be irreproachable. Who denies this? But since it is necessary for a bishop to be irreproachable, is it fitting for a Christian to be reprehensible? "Bishop" is a Greek name, but in Latin it can be said as "overseer" or "visitor." We are bishops, but with you, we are Christians. We are properly called from visitation, all are commonly from anointing. If the anointing is common, then the struggle is common. For why do we visit, if there is nothing good that we see in you?
Peter rebuked by Paul.
... may be found. If we were to desire this, if we were to dare this with headlong rashness, surely we would be frightened by today's reading. For we all heard when the epistle of the apostle Paul to the Galatians was read: "When Peter came to Antioch, I withstood him to his face, because he was to be blamed." Peter was to be blamed, and shall I dare to profess myself without any blame at all? I, a weak sheep, should not fear this whirlpool, when I see the ram drying its fleece? He raised himself firmly from this whirlpool; if I fall in, who will find me? Therefore, I will avoid the swelling wave, I will not throw myself in, I will not plunge, even if I were entirely conscious that nothing could be found in me by men to blame. The eyes of God are different, those eyes are different to which it was truly said: "No one living will be justified in your sight." And yet Peter, as we heard just now when it was read, was blamed even by men. Therefore the Christian mind must be entirely free of this rashness, not daring to profess such a life that even men could not find anything to blame. Let a man blame, if there is something to blame; absolutely let him blame; if I take it badly, let him blame me twice. For Peter acted so that he was blamed once, when he bore his critic with equanimity; he did not provide an example of all-around perfection, like Christ, but he provided an example of complete humility. He accepted the critic with equanimity, not preceding in the apostleship, but following. Let the apostle Paul forgive: what he did is easy; what Peter did is difficult. We live in human affairs, we are surrounded by daily experiences: I have often seen a man criticizing, I don't know if I have ever seen a critic enduring with equanimity. Therefore Paul more purely, but Peter more admirably. However, I do not know if it is more pure to recognize another's fault than to willingly acknowledge one's own.
"Concerning those who deny that Peter was reproved by Paul."
But it troubles some that Peter is said to have been rebuked, and it troubles and they dispute; but they should not be scorned if their presumption does not trouble them, but their love for Peter. They do not want to believe that he was truly rebuked; they think this was feigned, shaded for the eyes of men. "Inside, they say, something else was being done, and something else was shown to the people." O man, you fear the fault of one: do you not want me to fear the deceit of both? Out of love for Peter, you do not believe he was rebuked. You do not believe he was rebuked out of love for Peter; I believe he was rebuked out of love for Paul and Peter. I do not want to believe that the apostles were doing one thing inside and pretending another to the people. We are bishops, we follow in their footsteps as best we can: I do not want it to be permissible for us to deceive you. If one thing is done inside and another is pretended to the people, what sanctity is not to be feared? Neither do we want to deceive you nor be deceived by you. For if you think that we deceive you and we think that you deceive us, where is the charity that believes all things? Charity, he says, believes all things. It is believed so that it may be had, not so that it may be deceived.
The dissimulation of Peter was justly rebuked by Paul.
"But answer: What did Paul reprove in Peter?" What did he reprove but what he himself said, he himself wrote? He himself preserved the letter in memory, he himself propagated it to be read in the Church for posterity. What in the divine books do I believe more securely, if I do not believe what is written in that letter? It is an apostolic letter, a canonical letter, a letter of Paul, who labored more than all of them, not he himself, but the grace of God with him. Therefore, it is the letter of the grace of God. And if we recall who spoke in him, it is the letter of Christ. Or do you want, he says, to take the proof of him who speaks in me, Christ? Hear and fear. He says proof, not fiction. If you think this is little, hear the preacher himself, even one who invokes God as a witness. He began to narrate what he insinuated, as if foreseeing certain future disputers: What I write to you, he says, behold, before God I do not lie. So does he, thus invoking God, lie, while you without the testimony of God: The mouth, he says, that lies, kills not the body, but the soul? I ask you: do not love Peter so as to kill Paul; I ask you: let not Paul be killed in soul for Peter, they were together killed in the flesh for Christ. And again you ask and say to me: "What did Paul reprove in Peter?" Again I answer you: Paul reproved in Peter what he said and wrote. With the testimony of God, Paul said he reproved Peter: what do you seek from me? The letter is read by all: recall with me. When Peter came to Antioch, I withstood him to the face because he was to be blamed. For before certain men came from James, he ate with the Gentiles. But when they came, he withdrew, fearing those who were of the circumcision, and the other Jews also joined in his hypocrisy, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. Behold, you have heard what Paul reproved in Peter. Let us explain, and I will do this with the Lord's help, so that you understand. For I will do this not for you, but for those who hear both me and you.
The sacraments of the Jews are useless, yet not to be abominated.
The sacraments of the Jews: namely, circumcision, the Sabbath rest, the avoidance of certain foods and others of this kind, were divinely given, written in the law, and commanded by God as a figure of future times. These were not to be regarded as the abominable sacrileges of the Gentiles; these were not as the sacrifices of demons; this was not as if it were the worship of idols. God had commanded this through Moses to His people, the one God, the true God, He who said: I am who I am. But after the fullness of time had come, God sent His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, for He was also circumcised. [He was] born of a virgin woman, for by the custom of Hebrew speech, unless a virgin were called a woman, Eve would not have formed from a woman first. Therefore, after in the fullness of time God sent His Son, born of a woman through whom He made the woman, born under the law through whom He gave the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons, the shadows began to be unnecessary with the coming of the light; nevertheless, because they were not unnecessary, they were not yet to be regarded, like the sacrileges of the Gentiles, as sacred condemnable. It was not right to tell a Jew: "Do not circumcise, because you have believed in Christ", as it was right to tell a pagan who became Christian: "Do not sacrifice to idols, because you have believed in Christ". For if you place two things: the sacrifice of the pagans and the sacrament of the Jews, one of these was never necessary, always pernicious; but the other was once necessary, later unnecessary, but for those who received the Gospel of the Jews, not yet pernicious. Therefore, when the sacraments of the Jews, after the advent of Christ, were no longer necessary, but were once necessary by those through whom [Christ] was foretold by whom they were not necessary, they were to be ended with honor, not to be rejected with horror. Therefore, as things stood, Paul the Apostle, who had been especially sent to preach the Gospel to the Gentiles, had to take special care in fulfilling his vow, lest the salvation of the Gentiles be hindered by the sacraments of the Jews. Therefore, with Christ speaking in him, with God breathing and revealing in him, he decreed at that time, in the newness of the Gospel, not to prohibit any of the Jews from these sacraments at that time, nor to compel any Gentiles to these sacraments. So, like those paternal funerals soon to be abolished, now [considering them] as bodies without the soul of prophecy with due respect to be led to the grave, and yet, because they were unused and dead, he judged that they were not to be placed upon the shoulders of the Gentiles.
Why Peter was justly rebuked by Paul.
So then, in those sacraments at that time, the fault from which Peter was reproved, listen carefully, and assist our strength for such a great burden of a question, which then agitated the apostles themselves, perhaps less capable of breaking and solving it, but assist us: I implore you. Indeed, you have already heard many things, but listen as if anew to what more you want to hear, and I, standing, speak to you and am weak. Certainly, when the question seems to be newly proposed to you, our narration seems to pertain to this. For now, one who asked me just before, before I could explain through narration what I wanted, what Paul reproved Peter for, being made more cautious from my narration, says this: "If at that time and for those who came from Judaism abstaining from such sacraments was not imposed, and observing such sacraments was not imposed on the Gentiles, Peter who conducted such things from Judaisms, how did Paul rightly reprove him?" I say, brothers, the words themselves indicate it. Paul did not reprove Peter for observing Jewish sacraments but for imposing them on the Gentiles. For a Jew who believed in Christ at that time, if he wanted to observe those things, he was not prohibited; if he did not want to, he was not compelled. However, for any of the Gentiles who had believed, when he wanted to be circumcised, hearing that it was not necessary for salvation? Perhaps even the Jews themselves would scarcely be circumcised, unless the children underwent this. But what was it to compel the Gentiles to observe those sacraments, where we said Peter was reproved by Paul, if anyone were to ask, what was that compelling itself? Were they held involuntarily, bound and circumcised? Far from it! Therefore, what was it to compel, what do we think, except to say to them: "You cannot be saved unless you observe those lawful precepts like the Jews?" For with this condition proposed because they were seeking salvation and it was said to them that otherwise they could not attain to salvation, they were compelled involuntarily to observe those sacraments, not because they loved these things, but because they desired salvation.
The apostles decree that the ancient law must be observed.
Therefore, that moderation, namely that neither Jews were prohibited nor Gentiles compelled, was maintained by the apostles and decreed in the council. For when this question was agitating many and disturbing many, a meeting was held at Jerusalem, and with all the apostles and elders of the Church, that is, the presbyters and any preachers of the Gospel and the overseers of the Churches gathered, it was decided by common council, obviously inspired by the Lord, that Jews should not be prohibited from those practices, nor should Gentiles be compelled to them. Many recall that this is written in the Acts of the Apostles; let those who do not recall read it. Therefore, this manner was very temperate, very religious, very cautious. If those practices were ordered to be immediately rejected just like the sacrifices to idols, it would not be believed that the true God was the one who had commanded them. Therefore, Paul rebuked Peter, not because he observed these practices himself, but because he compelled the Gentiles to do so. How did he compel them? By consenting, though pretending, to those who said that Gentiles could not be saved otherwise unless they observed Jewish sacraments. This is also written in the Acts of the Apostles, narrated in the same book: "Then certain persons came to Antioch from James," that is, from Jerusalem, Jews who had already believed in Christ, "and they said to the brothers from the Gentiles who were coming, 'You cannot be saved otherwise unless you keep the lawful precepts.'" This is what it means to compel: to say that they cannot be saved otherwise.
Paul sometimes observed the sacraments of the law.
Against this, the Apostle Paul militated with the most ardent zeal. He removed this stone of horrendous oppression so that wretched nations might once rise again, as from the tomb of Lazarus. For if he reproached this observance and not compulsion, he would even reproach himself. For he also undertook these and celebrated certain Jewish sacraments in Jerusalem with the Jews in the temple; but he observed these things as one coming from the Jews, not compelling the nations to them. Paul, coming from the Jews, the evangelist of the nations, the counselor and executor of the holy apostles, by his example rather showed what pleased the Holy Spirit in such a question, what He decreed and established. For James said to him, already established in Jerusalem: "Many," he says, "think you oppose the legitimate ancestral practices and are an enemy and foe of the law. What then is it? Hear me. There are some here who have come to take purification: purify with them so that all may know" - it was not said "so that all may think": for devotion was commanded, not simulation suggested - "so that all," he says, "may know you are an emulator of the law and ancestral observances." Paul did this as a Jew from the Jews, not however that he might be justified by those very sacraments, but that he might not be thought to condemn them.
Why did Paul wish to circumcise Timothy, but not Titus?