SERMON 360/B
Sermon of Saint Augustine
when the pagans were entering
The word of God promises and threatens.
The word of God does not cease to exhort us and console us with faithful promises and salutary threats. For it is not beneficial for us neither not to love nor not to fear. Just as God, the promiser, is to be loved, so also the intimidator is to be feared. In neither does He deceive the listener, in neither does He trick the believer. Let no one say in his heart: "He promises true things, but threatens false things." Both are true. Love and fear. Without any doubt, the one who has already come will come. He came to teach you patience, he will come to crown patience. He will surely crown what he taught when he came. And what he threatened when he came, he will inflict when he comes. These, however, are two: the promise of God, eternal life; the threat of God, eternal punishment. If you do not yet know how to love what He promises, begin to fear what He threatens. For it is also written: The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. But the apostle John says: There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. Therefore, when we heard: The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, let us begin to fear. But because fear has torment in the heart, you will not be long in torment if charity has increased and been perfected in you. Yet it cannot even begin in you unless you have offered your heart with fear to plant it. And as charity grows, fear diminishes. And if it diminishes as charity grows, it is consumed when charity is perfected.
What God promises surpasses human thoughts.
For what God promises, beloved, exceeds not only our words but also the thoughts of all men. For it is thus also commended: What eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man, what God has prepared for those who love Him. If there were some color like the light known to bodily eyes, it would not be said: Eye has not seen; if there were some sweet sound with which human ears are accustomed to be delighted, like organs and some kinds of musical instruments, it would not be said: Ear has not heard. And because men cannot conceive of good things with their minds except those they have perceived with their bodily senses, it is added: Nor has entered into the heart of man. For you, man, cannot think of good, except such as you have been accustomed to see or hear or touch with some such sense. Whatever has not entered through the sense of your body cannot be conceived by your mind.
To behold the inaccessible light, an eye of the soul is needed.
Therefore, when it is said to us that we will be in paradise, we imagine a pleasant garden. And if we conceive of it as larger than what we are used to seeing, we nonetheless amplify that same kind of things. If, for example, we are accustomed to seeing small trees, we imagine them large; and if we are used to certain fruits or other produce, we think of larger ones. If we are used to seeing meadows of a certain expanse, we imagine them as endlessly immense: yet we still amplify what we know by sight. Again, when we hear: God dwells in unapproachable light, we measure that light by the light we know with our physical eyes and amplify it immensely, yet in doing so we augment what we know, even though that light is of a completely different kind; for that light is not of the eyes but of the mind. And just as the eye of the flesh must be cleansed to bear the physical light which either shines from the sky above or glitters from nocturnal lights, and if the eyes are sore or afflicted by some internal or external influence, they will find painful the same light by which they are accustomed to be nurtured, and will be tortured by what they were accustomed to enjoy, so too the eye of the heart must be cleansed to see that intelligible and immortal light, not the eye of the flesh. For just as the eye of the flesh is disturbed by a discharge which causes inflammation, so the eye of the heart is disturbed by iniquity. It too has its weakness and impurity, not coming from dust, but from sin. Therefore, just as the eye of the body must be cleansed to see its physical light, so must the interior eye be cleansed to see that light which no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor has entered into the heart of man.
A man perceiving carnally cannot grasp the light of God.
Why does it not ascend into the heart of man? For it is perceived by the heart, when it is perceived. But why does it not ascend into the heart of man? Because it pertains to man. What does this mean, because it pertains to man? Those who know the Scriptures understand and anticipate what I am going to say. Our Scripture sometimes calls those who still think carnally "men" with a certain specific meaning. For they are men, that is, they are Adam. But you know that Adam sinned, and hence anyone who is born mortally draws the origin of carnal desire from there. Thus, he bears with him a wound of the eye, and as long as he is a man, as long as there is that which is wounded and disturbed by the first sin. Wherefore someone cries out in the Psalms and says, sighing and groaning to God, "The light of my eyes is not with me." As long as a man is thus feeling carnally, he cannot conceive nor comprehend with the mind that light, and therefore it is said, "What the eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it ascended into the heart of man." What is it of man? Of one feeling carnally. What is it of man? Still bearing Adam. Wherefore, what would He have those do who were men, for whom it was a reproach that they were men? For He says to them: "For when one of you says, I am of Paul, and another, I am of Apollos, and another, I am of Cephas." For they had divided among themselves the ministers of God and made factions for themselves in the Church of Christ, with the beginning of the evil of schisms, which were later confirmed by the error of men. These things were said by those feeling carnally and not placing their hope in God, but in man, not singing with their heart what we sang a little before: "In You our fathers have hoped."
As the present life flees, let us strive to grasp the future.
Therefore, the Apostle, reproaching those who speak thus, says: "Are you not men, and walk according to human ways?" Again, in the psalm, it is said in the person of God speaking: "I said: You are gods, and all of you are children of the Most High. But you shall die like men and fall like one of the princes." As you know, it speaks of the devil as one of the ancient princes. For although he was an angel, he fell due to pride and became the devil. Thus, he who fell then envied the one standing, and now he envies the one returning.
Men have become mortal for this reason: that they might be taught humility through the greater affliction of punishment, and being as it were scourged by their mortality and thinking that they cannot live here long, and even if they could live longer, they would still not live forever, and this life would eventually come to an end, they might humble themselves to God and strive to grasp the future as the present flees. For that which flees or slips away cannot be held. Or can any of us now, whether we stand and speak or you stand and listen, hold onto our ages, so that children do not grow or the young do not age? You see that since the time we have been speaking, time has passed. And since the time we have been speaking, with the length of time, we tend towards old age; already during the time we have spoken, we have aged somewhat.
These changes of ours can be understood by reason, but they cannot be seen with the eyes. For neither can your hair be seen as it grows, yet if it did not grow continuously, you would not seek a barber after a few days: for what the barber will cut tomorrow does not grow under a single night. Just as hair grows even now but cannot be seen, so too does our age grow old even now, but it cannot be grasped by the eyes.
Short life, certain death: therefore, let us humble ourselves before God.
Therefore, people love the present life, which they cannot hold as it flees, and it slips away as these thrive and those diminish. How much better it is to hold something firm, where these finite things will come to an end. Moreover, since human life is short, it is also uncertain. For if old age were certain for every person, one had to think that life is short, even if it were allowed for all to reach its limits. For what is long that ends? Therefore, it follows that mortality is accompanied by death, and, as it were, walks with you on the path, when it will overtake you, you certainly do not know. Therefore, when life itself is short, and death uncertain for every age, people ought to humble themselves before God, supplicate the Creator, confess, groan in their sins, disclose their illness to the doctor, so that they might be healed from within and change that eye, by which that light can be seen, which is not seen for as long as the inner eye of man belongs to man. Therefore, let them awaken when they hear from God: "I said: You are gods and all of you are sons of the Most High." What is "I said"? I call you to this, I want to make this happen. Hear the Gospel: "He gave them the power to become children of God." Therefore, when I say: You are gods and all of you are sons of the Most High, but you will die like men, and not even mortality itself helps you to correct yourselves, but as if you were immortal, you fall like one of the princes, that is, you are as proud as the angel who dared to be proud. But if pride cast down the angel, what will it do to man? Therefore, you will be gods. And if you do not worship false gods, you will be gods. And how will you be gods? By Him making it who made both men. For He who made us men, wishes to make gods, not to be worshipped instead of Him, but in whom He Himself is worshipped.
When the heart is cleansed by faith, we are deemed worthy to see God.
Therefore, as I began to say, beloved, there is an inner eye which sins, carnal desires and earthly longings wound and disturb, such that the very man sinning has heard: "You are dust, and to dust you shall return." If therefore the proud and unjust deserve to hear, "You are dust, and to dust you shall return," why should not the humble and pious hear: "You are heaven, and to heaven you shall go"? For it is by humility and piety that one becomes the seat of God. Now, once one has become the seat of God, is it not heaven? It is said in the Scriptures: "Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool." Therefore, if heaven is the seat of God, be heaven so that you may bear God. When you begin to bear God, you will be heaven. In order to fully bear Him, He Himself will cleanse you when He begins to dwell in you, until He leads that eye of the heart to such purity that it can see His face, in whom having not seen, you believed. Therefore, believe before you see, so that with your heart cleansed by faith you may also merit to see what you believed. For light is promised to you, which no eye has seen, because it is not a color, nor has ear heard, because it is not a sound, nor has it entered into the heart of man, because man who is properly called man, carnal, weak, and animalistic, cannot conceive anything except what he has received through the senses of the body. That light is not such. Let the soul not dare to form any image of God, as if in a fantasy: he who wishes to find Him must first learn not to find Him.
The work of God cannot be God.
What is it that I said: first learn not to find? So that when by chance you think of God and what you see begins to occur to you, the beauty of the earth occurs, you reject it from your mind; the appearance of waters occurs, the tranquility of the serene air occurs, you reject also this thought; say to yourself: "This is not my God, it is the work of my God." This, I say, is not my God, it is the work of my God: you are considering what was made. O my soul, seek Him who made it. But when your thought comes even to the heavenly bodies, let not the heavenly light allure you, not even the highest one. For the highest heavenly light is in the sun. The chief brightness of the heavenly bodies is found in the sun, which suffices for the day. Nor should you think of your God as anything like this, nor should you amplify this brightness into something greater and wander off into the spaces of your imagination; nor is God what in your mind is thus figured as what usually shines to the eyes of the body. This is not God.
In the mind of man is the image of God.
Come to the soul itself, for it too is not seen. The soul is not seen, and it is a great force of incorporeal nature. The soul is not a body; it is something invisible and something great: it cannot be seen, but marvel at its works which you do not see. What delights you in human affairs? Look around at the order of things, the beauty of cultivated fields, of cleared forests, of planted fruit trees, and those things we see and love in the fields—the order itself of the republic, the grandeur of buildings, the variety of arts, the abundance of languages, the depth of memory, the fertility of eloquence. All these are works of the soul. How many works of the soul do you see, yet do not see the soul itself! When such a nature begins to occur to you, is this your God whom you were seeking? It is not seen, it is already something incorporeal, something spiritual, something great, which enlivens even mortal limbs, which somehow restrains and holds together the flowing decays of the body. But this also can be done by the soul of a beast. Indeed, the soul of a beast is also something great, it too is something invisible. But transcend to the soul of man: consider where man was made in the image of God. Indeed, man was not made in the image of God in his body, but in his mind, in that aspect by which he governs all these things, in that aspect by which he surpasses the beasts. For how many beasts surpass us in the firmness of body and sharpness of carnal senses! In speed and strength, in many physical endowments, we are surpassed by beasts. How are we better than beasts, except that we understand, except that we have reason by which we can also tame a wild animal? By a wild animal, we cannot be tamed. Just as man is suitable to tame a beast, so no one is suitable to tame a man but God. When something of this kind occurs, so that you consider the human mind freed from corporeal bonds, do not dare to think such a thing is God. Indeed, it already seems to you in proximity, but by a long interval. In proximity, so that nothing earthly is closer to God, but still between your mind and God who created your mind, there is a great difference. Not some nature or place intervenes, but it is far away by dissimilarity, since this was made, and He made it, and no way can what is made be compared to the maker. However, some image of your God is in your mind.
"Consider what God is not, so that you may find what He is."
Transcend, if you can, even your own mind, if, however, through understanding you have reached your mind. Observe, brethren, what I am saying. For perhaps even when you think about your mind, you think of something corporeal due to the habit of carnal senses, so that your mind appears to you as either air or fire or this light which you see. You think something similar when you think about your mind. Do not think of something like that. As soon as that which you understand occurs to you, say to yourself, "What is it that I understand?" Indeed, unless there were some light there, you would not understand. For you perceive a certain light inwardly, just as you perceive a certain light outwardly. For the light of your body is your eye. But in the absence of light, what good is it that your eye is open? You indeed have intact light, but you are aided by another light in order to see. Thus, also when you understand, I do not know what kind of thing that can enjoy the internal light, which is not what you see with your eyes. Think of something like this with regard to your mind, if you can; but if you cannot, what is that beyond your mind which terrifies your mind, which urges your mind, which shapes your mind? [What is that beyond] You cannot think worthily of the mind: how can you then think worthily of Him whom you will see with a pure mind? Therefore, if you cannot even do this, [neither] earth, nor heaven, nor air, nor this stellar light, nor the power and nature of the rational soul itself, as marvelous as it is, can rightly be called your God, but everywhere you should say: "This is not my God." [11] Therefore, you cannot know what He is, unless you first learn what He is not. Therefore, first think about what He is not, so that you may find what He is.