(Discourse 7) No one has ever seen God. He is invisible, and He must be sought not with the eye, but with the heart. If we wished to see this sun, we would cleanse the bodily eye by which light can be seen. So also, if we wish to see God, let us cleanse the eye by which we can see God.
Where is this eye? Hear the Gospel: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Mt 5:8). But let no one think of God according to the desire of the eyes. Then he imagines some immense figure, or some immeasurable magnitude spread everywhere. He likens it to this light, which he sees with bodily eyes and extends in space as far as he can. Or else he imagines some venerable old man.
Think nothing of this kind. There is something for you to think, if you wish to think of God: God is love. What shape has love? What appearance has it? What height? What feet? What hands? No one can say. Yet it has feet, for they lead to the Church. It has hands, for they give to the poor. It has eyes, for by them it recognizes who is in need: “Blessed,” it says, “is he who considers the poor and needy” (Ps 40:2). It has ears, of which the Lord says: “He who has ears to hear, let him hear” (Lk 8:8).
All these are not bodily parts, each set in its own place. Whoever has love sees all this at once with the mind. Dwell in love, and it will dwell in you. Abide in love, and it will abide in you.
For can anyone love what he does not see? Yet why, when you hear of love, are you encouraged, approving, and praising it? What have I shown you? Have I shown you any colors? Have I set gold or silver before you? Have I dug precious stones out of hidden treasures? What of this have I shown to your eyes? Has my appearance changed while I have been speaking? I bear flesh. I am in the same form in which I came out to you. You also are in the same form in which you came. Yet praise of love resounds, and you cry out with joy.
Certainly you see nothing. But as dear as love is to you when you praise it, so let it be dear to you to keep it in your heart. Hear, brothers, what I say. As far as the Lord grants, I call you to possess a great treasure.
If some vessel were shown to you, chased, gilded, and skillfully made, it would captivate your sight and draw your heart’s desire. The craftsman’s work, the weight of the silver, and the brilliance of the metal would please you. Would not each of you say to himself, “If only I had this vessel”? Yet he would say it in vain, for it would not be in your power. Or, if someone still wished to possess it, he would begin thinking how to steal the vessel from another man’s house.
But when love is praised before you, take it, if you wish, and possess it. You need not steal it from anyone. You need not think how to buy it. It is given freely. Receive it. Embrace it. Nothing is sweeter than it. And if even the remembrance of it is so pleasant, how pleasant is its possession.
But if you wish to keep love, brothers, do not first think that it can be sluggish and slack. Do not think love can be kept through softness, or rather, not softness, but indulgence and negligence. Love is not kept in that way.
Do not think that you love your servant if you do not strike him. Do not think that you love your son if you do not discipline him. Do not think that you love your neighbor if you do not rebuke him. This is not love, but slackness. Let your love be fervent for correction and improvement. If morals are good, let them please you. If they are evil, improve and correct them.
Do not love error in a man, but the man himself. God made the man, while man himself made the error. Love what God made. Do not love what man himself made. If you love the one, you destroy the other. If you cherish the one, you correct the other. But if sometimes you must be severe, do it out of love, for correction.
This is why love was signified by the dove that descended upon the Lord. The Holy Spirit, Who was to pour love into us, came in the form of a dove. Why so? The dove has no gall, yet it fights for its nest with beak and wings. It can be fierce, but without bitterness.
So also does a father act. When he punishes his son, he punishes in order to teach. As I have said, the deceiver caresses with bitterness in order to sell. The father punishes without gall in order to correct. Be such toward all.
Look, brothers, at this great example and great rule. Everyone has sons, or wishes to have sons. Or, if he has resolved to have no children according to the flesh, he desires to have spiritual sons. And who does not correct his son? Who does not receive discipline from his father? Yet the father seems severe and fierce. There is love with fierceness. There is goodwill with fierceness, but a fierceness somehow without gall, in the image of the dove, not the raven.
All this brings me to say to you that those who violated love also made the schism. As they hated love itself, so they hate the dove. But the dove convicts them. It descends from heaven, the heavens are opened, and it rests upon the head of the Lord. Why? So that it might be said, “This is He Who baptizes” (Jn 1:33).
Depart, robbers. Depart, plunderers of Christ’s possession. On His possession, where you wish to rule, you dared to set the inscription of the Mighty One. But He knows His inscriptions. He will defend His possession. He does not abolish the inscriptions, but enters into possession.
Thus, when someone returns to the Catholic Church, baptism is not taken away from him. Otherwise the Emperor’s inscription would be erased. But what happens in the Catholic Church? We acknowledge the inscription. The owner enters into lawful possession, into that possession where the robber had entered without right.
This “inscription” (titulus) implies the indication of the property’s owner and contains the name of the lawful owner of the property on which it stands, in this case Christ. The Emperor means Christ. Rebaptizing those who return to the Church from the Donatist schism would deny, or erase, the force of their former baptism, the inscription of Christ the Emperor. Therefore it is not necessary.
(Discourse 8) Sweet is the name of love, but sweeter still is love itself in action. We cannot speak of it always. We have many tasks, and various duties divide us among themselves. Our tongue therefore has no leisure always to speak of love, though this would be its best work. Yet although it is impossible to speak of love all the time, it is possible to keep it always.
Just now we sang Alleluia. Do we sing all the time? We sang Alleluia for barely a small part of an hour, not even a whole hour, and we are ready to pass to other tasks. As you know, Alleluia means “Praise God.” Whoever praises God with the tongue cannot always do this. Whoever praises God by his life can always do it.
Works of mercy, affections of love, holiness of piety, incorruption of purity, and modesty of sobriety must always be kept. We must keep them in company and at home, in public and in our chamber, whether speaking or silent, whether working or at leisure. We must always keep them, because all these virtues I have named are within us.
But who can name them all? They are like the army of a commander who sits within, in your mind. As a commander does what he pleases by means of his army, so the Lord Jesus Christ begins to dwell in our inner man, that is, in the mind, through faith. He disposes these virtues as servants.
By these virtues, which cannot be seen with the eyes, the members of the body are visibly set in motion. Yet when these virtues are mentioned, they are praised. They would not be praised if they were not loved. They would not be loved if they were not seen. Since they would not be loved unless they were seen, they are visible, but to another eye, the inner gaze of the heart.
The feet set out on the way. But where? Where the good will, serving a good commander, moves them. The hands begin their works. But what works? Those that love, inspired by the Holy Spirit, commands.
Thus the members of the body are visible when they move, while He Who gives the commands within is invisible. Who gives the commands within is known perhaps only to Him Who commands and to the one who receives them.
Indeed, brothers, when the Gospel was read, you heard, if you offered not only bodily hearing but also the hearing of the heart. What did it say? “Do not do your alms before men, in order to be seen by them” (Mt 6:1). Did it mean that we should hide every good thing we do from human eyes and fear being seen? If you fear spectators, you will have no imitators. Therefore you must be seen. But you must not act in order to be seen.
The goal of your joy must not be there. The limit of your gladness must not be that you think you have received the whole fruit of your good work if you are seen and praised. That is nothing. Disregard yourself when you are praised. Let praise be given to Him within you, Who acts through you.
Therefore, when you do good, do it not for your own praise, but for the praise of Him Who gives you the power to do good. From yourself you have evil works. From God you have the ability to do good.
And, conversely, see how absurdly perverse men act. When they do something good, they want to attribute it to themselves. When they do evil, they want to blame God. Turn this distortion and absurdity around. Act as though turning upside down what was upside down. Put what is below above, and what is above below.
Do you want to put God beneath and yourself above? Then you will fall, not rise, for He is always above. What then? Is good from you, and evil from God? No. If you wish to speak more truly, say this: evil is from me, good is from Him. Whatever good is in me is good from Him, because whatever I do from myself is evil. Such confession strengthens the heart and lays the foundation of love.
For if we must hide our good works so that men do not see them, what of the saying the Lord spoke in the Sermon on the Mount? In the same place where He said this, a little earlier He said: “Let your works shine before men.” He did not stop there. He did not make that the end, but added: “And let them glorify your Father Who is in heaven” (Mt 5:16).
And what does the Apostle say? “I was unknown by face to the churches of Christ in Judea. They only heard that he who once persecuted them now preaches the faith he once destroyed, and they glorified God in me” (Gal 1:22-24). See how Paul did not set his goal in self-praise because he had become so well known, but in the praise of God.
As for himself, he acknowledges that he was a ravager of the Church, a malicious persecutor, and a wrongdoer. We are not merely guessing this. Paul wants us to name his sins, and thereby to glorify Him Who healed such a disease. The physician’s hand cut open an immense wound and healed it.
A voice from heaven struck down the persecutor and raised up the preacher. It killed Saul and brought Paul to life. Saul had been a persecutor of a holy man, and therefore he bore that name when he persecuted Christians. Then Saul became Paul. What does Paul, Paulus, mean? Little.
Thus, when he was Saul, he was proud and exalted. When he became Paul, he became humble and little. We also say, “We shall see each other in a little while,” paulo post, that is, after a short time.
Hear how he became little: “I am the least of the Apostles” (1 Cor 15:9). Elsewhere he says: “To me, the least of all the saints” (Eph 3:8). Among the Apostles he was like the hem of the garment. But the Church of the Gentiles, as though suffering from an issue of blood, touched him and was healed (cf. Mt 9:20-22).
Therefore, brothers, I have told you, I tell you, and if I could, I would never be silent about it. Let your works vary according to the time, the hour, and the day. Must one always speak? Must one always be silent? Must one always refresh the body? Must one always fast? Must one always give bread to the needy? Must one always clothe the naked? Must one always visit the sick? Must one always reconcile those who quarrel? Must one always bury the dead? Sometimes one thing is needed, sometimes another.
THEOSIS