To what the works of Christ the mediator aim.
Therefore, the proud seduces the proud more because mortality offends the proud more than iniquity. Thus, they abhor the mortality in the humanity of Christ more than the iniquity in the pride of the devil. So, he leads those inflated by vain and false doctrines through some sacrilegious rites, promising purification in temples, and through magical consecrations and detestable secrets, drags them to astrologers, fortune-tellers, augurs, and haruspices. He dares to boast that he is stronger and greater than Christ because he was not born in the flesh from a woman, was not apprehended, was not scourged, was not spat upon, was not crowned with thorns, was not suspended on a cross, nor did he die and get buried: all these things the proud deride. The humble mediator assumed these, not taking on iniquity with men but taking on humanity to heal them from the swelling of pride, and make them victors over that false mediator. They would learn to confess their sins and be cleansed from their own injustice by Christ's righteousness, and through humble association with His mortality, reach the sublime height of immortality.
"No one outside the Church promises you purification."
Therefore, brothers, let us reject the malevolent mediator, the false and deceitful mediator, the mediator who does not reconcile but rather separates more and more. Let no one promise you any purification outside the Church, whether in temples or anywhere through sacrilegious rites; let no one promise anything outside of unity, even through Christian sacraments, because, although there is a sacrament outside of unity—which we cannot deny nor dare to violate—the power and salvation of the sacrament, making one a co-heir with Christ, is only in the unity and bond of peace of the Church. Let no one deceive you away from God, no one from the Church, no one from God the Father, no one from the Church the mother. That false mediator, transforming himself into an angel of light, and his ministers, transforming themselves into ministers of justice, wishes to separate you from God; if he cannot lead you to sacrilegious rites, he will want to separate you from the Church either to heresies or to schisms, so that by abandoning the mother you offend the Father. We had two parents who begot us mortally; we have two who beget us immortally: God and the Church. Those parents generated successors for themselves; these generate companions for themselves. To what end were we born to human parents, except to succeed the dead? However, by God the Father and the Church the mother, we are generated such that we live with our parents eternally. Whoever goes to sacrilegious rites or magical arts or consults astrologers, augurs, soothsayers, and the diabolic machinations of this world about his life or things pertaining to this life, is separated from the Father, although he does not leave the Church. But if anyone is separated from the Church by the division of schism, although he seems to keep the Father for himself, he most perniciously forsakes the mother. However, he who leaves both the Christian faith and the mother Church abandons both. Hold onto the Father, hold onto the mother. You are a child: cling to the mother. You are a child, suck the milk of the mother, and nourished by the milk, you will be led to the table of the Father.
Christ the Lord has conquered our weakness.
Your Savior took flesh, your mediator took flesh, and by taking flesh He took the Church. He anticipated, as if from the head, what He would offer to God, a priest forever and propitiation for our sins. The Word took on human nature, and the two became one, as it is written: They shall be two in one flesh. This is a great mystery, he says, but I speak of Christ and the Church. The bridal chamber of this marriage was the womb of a virgin. And He, as a bridegroom coming forth from His chamber, rejoiced as a giant to run His course. A giant because He is strong, conquering weakness with infirmity and killing death with death. However, He ran along the way; He did not stand on the way, so that He did not become the man signified as having stood in the way of sinners. For when the psalm says, Blessed is the man who has not walked in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stood in the way of sinners, it denotes a certain one who stood in the way of sinners. Therefore, the Lord Jesus Christ ran in the way of sinners, but Adam actually stood in the way of sinners. And because he stood, he was wounded by robbers, fell, and lay down. But He saw the one who thus walked this way without standing, but running; He found the wounded, placed him on His animal, and gave him to the innkeeper, because He Himself ran the way to fulfill what was predicted of Him: He drank from the brook on the way, therefore He will lift up His head. For this world is a stream. Torrents of water are called those which flow due to sudden showers or winter rains or floods, surely quickly passing. Thus are all these temporal things: a torrent is passing, quickly about to cease. On this day, the first of January, those who rejoice in the luxuries and vanities of the world do not see the rush of the torrent carrying them away. Let them call, if they can, for a similar day of the previous year; let them at least recall yesterday. They do not see their joys passing like a torrent, so that afterwards they may say: These are those whom we once had in laughter and in the likeness of scorn. We foolish ones, we thought their life to be madness and their end without honor. How are they counted among the sons of God, and their lot is among the saints? Therefore, we have strayed from the way of truth, and the light of justice did not shine for us, and the sun did not rise upon us. Which sun? Not this visible one? To them, this one rises daily. For the Lord says about this: He makes His sun rise on the good and the evil. There is another who made this sun, invisible and intelligible, this sun of justice, of whom it is said elsewhere: The sun of justice rose for me. He did not rise for them. And listen to what they lament: What did pride profit us, and what did the boast of wealth bring us? All those things passed away, like a shadow. Like that torrent now has already flowed away; but nevertheless, He who was born, suffered, was crucified, buried, and rose again: from that stream on the way He drank, passing from here to the Father, with the faithfulness to follow for whom He drank from this stream on the way; therefore He lifted up His head, that is, Himself.
Holy men profess Christ as the sole mediator.
For the head of the Church is he himself, who has already ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of the Father, showing us in his offering what we ought to hope for concerning our own flesh. For as the Apostle says: "For in hope we have been saved," and "we groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies." For we are adopted children, but he is the only begotten: in the beginning was the Word, God with God, as the evangelist bears witness, and equal to the Father, as the Apostle Paul says, yet he became humble so that he might be the one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. What an evil and false mediator is he who obstructs the way to God; all proud men strive to be like him: wherever they are, they want to be like their mediator. And just as you see among men, so also among angels. He who wished to be mediator and reconciler to God, of whom we have spoken much, that is, the humble and exalted Lord Jesus Christ, assumed every creature — for in man all is included: as we said above, creatures are either spiritual or corporeal — he therefore assumed all of man, taking the form of a servant; he assumed everything in the rational mind, everything in the soul, everything in the flesh, except for sin. Therefore, in him are all things, lest anyone err in seeking purification through another creature as mediator and purifier; hence the mediator has everything, hence the mediator assumed everything, for a creature as mediator can cleanse from iniquities and liberate from mortality, who does not presume to have any value in itself but clings personally and unitedly in an ineffable manner to the Word of God, so that it could be said: "The Word became flesh." His humility was scorned and exalted for this reason, lest humble men despair of themselves and the proud presume. Therefore, when proud men wish to be worshipped and, if God is preferred to them, become angry, they are imitators of that false mediator. Unlike humble holy men, who, when honored by erring men seeking to place their hope in a man, not heeding the divine Scripture saying: "Cursed is the man who trusts in man," grieve in their hearts and faithfully admonish, as much as they can, that hope should be placed in God, not in man, as even the Apostle did not wish hope to be placed in himself but in the truth he proclaimed. What was spoken through him was better than he through whom it was spoken, and he wished believers to place their hope in what was spoken through him, not in him through whom it was spoken. "Even if we," he says — and it is little if we; hear what follows — "or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed." He saw that a false mediator might transform himself into an angel of light and announce something false. Therefore, as proud men wish to be worshipped as God, arrogating whatever they can to themselves, wishing to be named and, if possible, to surpass Christ himself in glory, so do the devil and his angels.
The Donatists place Donatus before Christ.
My brothers, we speak to Catholics. They hold Donatus, the Donatist, as they do Christ. If they hear a pagan detracting from Christ, they perhaps suffer it more patiently than if they hear someone detracting from Donatus. You know what I am saying, and you are compelled to experience this daily. They love Donatus so perversely that they place him before Christ. Not only do they have nothing to say, but they even know they have nothing to say. For nothing holds them except the name of Donatus under the name of Christ; they have been seduced to the name of a man against Christ. This is why they have contracted the greatest hatred against us because we cry out to them: "Do not place your hope in a man, lest you be cursed." They hate those who preach peace, and if they suffer anything for their great crime - and not for Christ, but for Donatus - they think themselves martyrs; and because we say to them: "Do not blow away the baptism of Christ, love peace, return yourself to the world: Christ redeemed the whole world with His blood, do not reduce the buyer of everything to a part," for this reason, they hate us and, if given the chance, kill us by the hand of the Circumcellions. But since the Lord has helped, we have escaped, giving thanks to the mercy of the Lord. Therefore, we admonish and ask that you pray for us, that the Lord may always inspire in us the confidence to preach His peace, and that we do not fear them but rather love them and rejoice that what is written is fulfilled in us: With those who hate peace, I was peaceful; when I spoke to them, they fought against me without cause. And if they can be healed by no other way, let them fight against us, strike, kill, and yet be healed.
Honor the angels and martyrs, worship God alone.
But let us return, brothers, to what I had begun to say; for pain has carried me away from what I had intended. Just as there are proud men - who prefer to be worshiped rather than God -, so too proud angels prefer to be worshiped rather than God. And just as there are holy men - who prefer that God be worshiped rather than themselves -, so too all holy angels, which one must believe without any doubt also about the martyrs, prefer that God be worshiped rather than themselves. They want Him to be honored whom they honor, they choose to be loved in Him; they do not accept private honors from men, and even reject them. Hence also, as much as the Lord gave an example, we gave this example from that angel in Revelation, who did not want to be worshiped by a man, but God. Therefore do not be afraid, brothers, lest perhaps, if you worship only God with religious service, you offend some holy angel or some martyr. For if carnal prudence persuades you of this, measuring it from yourselves - if perhaps you are pleased to be honored by a certain private pride of arrogance, not in God nor for the sake of God, but in yourselves and for your own sakes, such that if it is not done, you become indignant -, so you think either the holy angels or the holy martyrs rejoice in such services of men and demand the service owed to God for themselves, you will be easily deceived by the pagans and entirely withdrawn from the Lord your God, from whom we have received such a command: You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only shall you serve. Do you wish to securely honor the holy angels and holy martyrs? Worship Him in whom alone they wish to be honored. For if they are holy, they are angered with you if you worship them privately and not Him alone from whom they also received the grace of their beatitude. Because therefore they are holy, do not offend them by wanting to worship them separately. For by worshiping God, you worship all who cling to God with pious love and holy devotion. But if he gets angry because he himself is not worshiped with some private sacraments, he is already proud, a transgressor and false mediator, transforming himself into an angel of light. Now if he turns you aside to himself, he has blocked the way: not only can you not reach through him, but through him you are rather prevented from reaching.
The sacrifice is not offered to any martyr or angel, but to the Lord of all.
Do not let them sell you their empty rhetoric and say: "We honor the virtues of God, so that through them we may reach God, and we perform these rites for Saturn, these for Jupiter, these for Pluto, these for Neptune, these for Mars, these for Ceres." Therefore, indeed, not all rejoice in the same rites, because they arrogate private and personal cults to themselves; and by this fact, they are not sacred, but sacrilegious. And in all these things, their leader exults and triumphs, not so much in those rites as in the deception and error of men, delighting in malevolent arrogance. Therefore, let them not deceive you when they say to you: "If you honor the martyrs and believe that you are aided by them before God, how much more should we honor the virtues of God, through whom we are aided before God." Consider the sacraments of the Church and see whether a sacrifice is offered to any martyr, so that we offer one thing to this martyr and another to that one; but at all memorials we offer one thing, not to any of them, but to the Lord of all of us, in which sacrifice we also honor the martyrs according to their rank, not in themselves, but in Him through whom they conquered the devil. And they are the more mindful of us as we offer them less private veneration, because in the One in whom they alone have their joy, in Him alone do they have their honor. If anyone says to you: "Invoke the angel Gabriel this way, invoke Michael that way, offer this to one, that to the other," do not be deceived, do not consent; neither let him deceive you because the names of these angels are read in the Holy Scriptures: rather, consider how they are read there, whether they have demanded any private religious service from men and not rather that glory always be given to the one God to whom they are subject.
Angels are ministers, acting what they are commanded to act by God.
Not only if a man, but if anyone, like an angel or by some visitation or by a dream, tries to tempt you and says: "Do this for me, celebrate this for me, because I am an angel," for instance, "Gabriel," do not believe it. Worship securely the one God, who is Father and Son and Holy Spirit. Such worship pleases if it is an angel; but if he gets angry because you did not give anything outside, he is to be understood as the one about whom the Apostle says that he transforms himself into an angel of light: he wants to block the way, he intervenes wrongly; he is not a mediator reconciling, but rather separating. For that angel in the Apocalypse and others like him do not want themselves to be worshipped, but God. They are messengers, announcing what they have received to be announced; they are ministers, doing what they were ordered to do, bringing our prayers to God, not demanding those prayers themselves for God. The angel says to a man: I presented your petition in the sight of God's glory. However, he was not praying to the angel himself, and the angel was praying to God: the minister presented his prayer. Did he say, as do the perverse and corrupt ministers of some authorities: "Give me something, if you want me to deliver it, if you want me to admit you"? Our Lord does not have such a great house. His servants love him, his children love him. If you wish to corrupt any of them privately, so that you may be admitted to their Lord, you will be expelled far from that great house. For if they imitate angelic life - for it is written: "One soul and one heart is for God, and no one has anything of his own, but they have all things in common," as we read in the Acts of the Apostles that thousands of Jews had converted, to whom nothing was possessed as their own and was distributed to each as needed - if therefore these imitate angelic life, and if any of their friends, or brother or father or mother or any relative, wishes to privately offer something, not only do they reject it, but they also advise that, if it is to be offered and accepted, it should be offered to God, as they did who laid the prices of their goods at the Apostles' feet, as also those whom the Apostle encouraged to make some offering to the poor saints who were in Jerusalem - and this teaches, so that they know they are offering to God what they do -, how much more would those angels, surely more perfect, who in heavenly chambers and in the great house and the celestial city of Jerusalem, mother of us all, serve God with the most harmonious charity, wish no honor to be privately and personally shown to them, but they would be pleased with that honor alone which is shown communally to God as God, and to the very city as his temple, that is, to the whole Church.
One true mediator: Christ the priest.
And therefore, for the sake of purification, which is done through the mediator, he wanted to be the one mediator and himself become man, who is equal to the Father, so that through the related substance - which is man - we might reach the supreme substance - which is God. And so he descended, because we were in the lower places, and he ascended, so that we would not remain in the lower places. That one true mediator does not deceive anyone, who, although he is equal to the Father, also wanted to be lesser than him for our sake, not by losing what is equal, but by taking on what is lesser. He has already liberated our flesh in his own flesh. He no longer dies, and death will no longer have dominion over him. To him our prayers come, though in the sacraments of the Church they are directed to the Father. He no longer dies. For he himself, the High Priest, offers them, who offered himself as a holocaust for us. He is the one who leads us, placing himself between, not to obstruct but to direct; not to separate but to reconcile; not to hinder but to break the hindrances. He is the one high priest and one priest, who was prefigured in the ancient priests of God. Therefore a priest without bodily blemish was sought, because he alone lived without the stain of sin, even in a mortal body. For what was prefigured in their bodies, was manifest in his life. However, all of us bishops are called priests because we are set over others. Nevertheless, the whole Church is the body of that priest. The body belongs to its priest. For the apostle Peter also says to the very Church: Holy people, royal priesthood.
Christ the King and Priest prefigured in the Old Testament.
Then one priest was anointed, now all Christians are anointed. A king was anointed, a priest was anointed, others were not anointed. The Lord bore both roles, not in figure, but now in truth, both of king and priest. For this reason, in King David himself, from whose seed He was made according to the flesh, both were symbolized. He was a king, which we know and which is manifest. The role of the priest was also prefigured in him when he ate of the showbread, which was not lawful to eat except for the priests alone: which the Lord Himself also recalled in the Gospel, that He might be recognized by those who are able to understand that He was prefigured in David. For even Mary herself was descended not only from a royal line, but also from a priestly line. It is evident that she was from the royal line; thus, the Apostle says of the Lord Himself: Who was made for Him of the seed of David according to the flesh. Although His father is said to be Joseph by virtue of love, He was not born of his seed, as is declared in the Gospel. Therefore, it remains that Christ is called of the seed of David because of Mary, who was of the seed of David, that is, of the royal line. But how do we find the priestly lineage in Mary? It is written in the Gospel that Zechariah the priest had a wife, Elizabeth, from the daughters of Aaron. Therefore, Elizabeth was of the priestly line: for Aaron, Moses' brother, was a priest, and the whole tribe of Levi. But in the Gospel the angel says to the virgin Mary: Your relative, Elizabeth. Therefore, if Elizabeth, one of the daughters of the priest Aaron, was a relative of Mary, it is beyond doubt that the virgin Mary pertains not only to the royal but also to the priestly blood. Therefore, both roles, royal and priestly, are present in the Lord according to the man He assumed: royal, guiding us to every imitation of spiritual warfare, until He puts His enemies under His feet, and the last enemy, death, will be destroyed – for our king was also tempted by our enemy, so that as a soldier He might learn to wage war; and priestly, because to atone for and cleanse our sins He offered Himself as a burnt offering. Hence, formerly two were anointed in figure: the king and the priest.
Of the loaves and fishes which Christ multiplied.
Therefore, there were also two fish with those five barley loaves. For fish are related to the sauce: the dishes are usually seasoned with oil. Therefore, two fish with five loaves, that is, with the Old Testament, where the five books of Moses hold the preeminence. But with seven loaves, which are not called barley and already signify the New Testament, there are said to have been few fish because Christians had already begun to be few, that is, the anointed ones, from whom the entire Church throughout the whole world would be filled. For the five barley loaves signify, as if covered with layers, those things which are to be understood spiritually in the very law, which when unfolded, the Lord taught the apostles. Hence, twelve baskets of fragments are filled from the leftovers there. But the seven loaves signify the sevenfold operation of the Spirit in the New Testament, as John also says in the Apocalypse. For seven spirits are understood to be mentioned for seven spiritual operations, of which Isaiah had previously made mention: of wisdom and understanding, of counsel and strength, of knowledge and piety, and of fear of the Lord. And therefore, seven baskets of fragments are filled from those leftovers, by which the entire Church is signified by that number. Whence also the same apostle John writes to the seven churches. And in the epistles of the apostle Paul, the same number is found, not of epistles, but of churches. And many things sought diligently in those sacraments are found more sweetly. But now I have mentioned something of this on account of the anointing of the fish, so that I might show the royal and priestly person indicated at that time by the two fish, for two were then anointed, the king and the priest. From the chrism, Christ is named, that is, from the anointing. The body of Christ, however, is the Church. And therefore, all Christians are anointed, by a hidden sacrament to the rest, but known to the faithful. However, the priest alone is the mediator, the head of the Church without sin, through whom the cleansing of our sins is accomplished.
Whether a bishop can be a mediator.
Whence it came into my mind with great sorrow to remember that Parmenian, once a bishop of the Donatists, dared to assert in a certain letter of his that a bishop is a mediator between the people and God. You see that they set themselves up in place of the bridegroom, corrupting the souls of others with sacrilegious adultery. This is no slight audacity, and it would seem utterly unbelievable to me if I had not read it. For if a bishop is a mediator between the people and God, since there are many bishops, it would follow that many mediators are to be understood. Therefore, if the letter of Parmenian is to be read, let the letter of the Apostle Paul be erased, saying: "For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus." Now between whom is he a mediator, if not between God and his people? Therefore, between God and his body, since his body is the Church. That monstrous pride is thus apparent, which dares to appoint a bishop as a mediator, claiming the marriage of Christ with adulterous deceit. Let us see the friend of the bridegroom jealous for the bridegroom, not opposing himself in place of the bridegroom. Does he say: "I have betrothed you to myself"? He can say this who calls himself a mediator between the people and God, not he who says: "Was Paul crucified for you, or were you baptized in the name of Paul?" Not he who says: "For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus." Not he who says: "I have betrothed you to one husband to present you as a pure virgin to Christ." And therefore that adulterer who did not have a wedding garment was cast out of the wedding feast: for he did not have the garment in which he would honor the bridegroom, but through that habit sought his own honor in the bridegroom's feast.
Christ was prefigured as mediator in the old sacraments.