Let us return and see what he himself says: “He who has the bride is the bridegroom; this is not my bride.” Why then do you not rejoice at the wedding? “On the contrary, I rejoice,” he says, “for I am the friend of the Bridegroom.”
See how he names Christ, and how he names himself: “He who has the bride is the bridegroom.” Be pure, and love the Bridegroom.
Who are you, who says this to us: “He who has the bride is the bridegroom; but the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice”?
The Lord our God, amid the distress of my heart, for it is filled with much sorrow, will help me speak of what pains me. But I implore you by Christ Himself: imagine what I cannot express.
I know that my pain cannot be adequately expressed. I see many adulterers who wish to possess the bride. The Bridegroom loved her and bought her at so great a price.
He bought her disfigured, so that after He had bought, freed, and adorned her, she might become beautiful. By their words they strive to be loved instead of the Bridegroom.
Of Him it is said, “This is He who baptizes.” Who comes forward and says, “I baptize”? Who comes forward and says, “What I give is holy”?
Who stands forth and says, “Blessed are you, because you are born from me”? Let us listen to the friend of the Bridegroom, not to those who violate fidelity to the Bridegroom. Let us listen to him who loves ardently, but not himself.
Brothers, return in heart to your homes. I am speaking of fleshly and earthly things. “I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh.”
Many of you have wives. Many wish to have wives. Many, though they do not now wish to have them, have had them. Many have no wish at all to have wives.
You were born of the wives of your fathers. There is no heart untouched by this feeling of love for a woman. No one is so unlike other men in judging human things that he does not know the feeling of which I speak.
Imagine that a man, going on a journey, entrusted his bride to his friend: “See, my friend, I beg you, while I am absent, let no one suddenly be loved by her instead of me.”
If this man cares for his friend’s bride or wife, and even labors so that no one becomes her lover, what if he himself wishes to become her lover instead of his friend?
What if he wishes to enjoy the woman entrusted to his care? Would he not deserve the hatred of the whole human race?
Suppose he sees her looking now and then through the window and boldly jesting with someone. He forbids her, as though jealous. I see that he is jealous, but I wish to know for whom.
Is he jealous for the absent friend, or for himself who is present?
Consider what our Lord Jesus Christ has done. He entrusted His bride to the care of His friend and went to a far country to receive a Kingdom for Himself, as He Himself says in the Gospel.
Yet He is present in His majesty. They wish to deceive the Friend who has gone overseas. If He is deceived, woe to the one who deceives Him.
Why do they try to deceive God, the God who penetrates every heart and searches every secret? Some heretic comes out and says, “I give Baptism. I sanctify. I justify. I do not want you to go to that sect.”
He is jealous, but see for whom. “Do not go to idols”; he is rightly jealous. “Do not go to soothsayers”; he is rightly jealous.
Let us see for whose sake he is jealous. “What I give is holy, because I give it. The one whom I baptize is baptized. The one whom I do not baptize is not baptized.”
Hear the friend of the Bridegroom. Learn to be jealous for the Friend. Hear his voice: “This is He who baptizes.” Why do you wish to claim as your own what does not belong to you?
Is He who left His bride here so far away? Do you not know that He who rose from the dead sits at the right hand of the Father? If the Jews despised Him hanging on the tree, do you despise Him sitting in heaven?
Know, beloved, that I feel great pain over this. Yet, as I said, I leave the rest to your reflection. I would not express everything if I spoke all day.
If I grieved all day, it would not be enough. Even if I had, as the prophet says, a fountain of tears, I would not express it all. Even if I were turned into tears, or became tears, it would not be enough.
Even if I were turned into a tongue, or became a tongue, it would not be enough.
Let us return and see what John the Baptist says: “He who has the bride is the bridegroom.” She is not my bride. Do you not rejoice at the wedding?
On the contrary, he says, I rejoice. “But the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice.”
He says, I do not rejoice because I hear my own voice, but I rejoice because I hear the Bridegroom’s voice. I am the one who listens, and He is the One who speaks.
I am the one to be enlightened, and He is the Light. I am the ears, and He is the Word. Therefore the friend of the Bridegroom stands and hears Him.
Why does he stand? Because he does not fall. Why does he not fall? Because he is humble. See him standing firm: “I am not worthy to loose the strap of His sandal.”
Well do you humble yourself. Deservedly you do not fall. Deservedly you stand. Deservedly you hear Him and rejoice greatly because of the Bridegroom’s voice.
So also the Apostle, a friend of the Bridegroom, is jealous not for himself but for the Bridegroom. Hear the voice of his jealousy: “I am jealous for you with the jealousy of God,” he said.
Not with my own jealousy, not for myself, but with God’s jealousy. Why? In what way? Whom do you guard jealously, and for whose sake?
“Because I betrothed you to one Husband, that I might present you as a pure virgin to Christ.” What then do you fear? Why are you jealous?
“I fear,” he says, “lest as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, so your minds should be corrupted from simplicity in Christ.”
The whole Church is called a virgin. You see that the members of the Church differ, have different gifts, and rejoice in different gifts.
Some are husbands, others wives. Some are widowers and seek no more wives. Others are widows and seek no more husbands. Some keep purity from youth. Others consecrate their virginity to God.
Their gifts differ, but all are one Virgin. Where then is this virginity? It is not in the flesh.
Holy purity of body belongs to few women and, if virginity may be spoken of concerning men, to few men in the Church. These are the more glorious members.
Other members keep virginity not in the flesh, but wholly in the mind. What is virginity of mind? A chaste faith, an unbroken hope, and an unstained love.
The one who is jealous for the Bridegroom fears for this virginity, lest the serpent deceive the mind of the believer. As bodily integrity is violated by harm to any member, so the seduction of the tongue violates the heart’s virginity.
Let that pure virgin avoid deception in mind, if she does not wish to keep bodily virginity without purpose.
What do I mean, brothers? There are virgins even among heretics, and many virgins among heretics. Let us see whether they love the Bridegroom in such a way that this virginity is preserved.
For whom is it preserved? For Christ, says the Apostle. Let us see: for Christ, or for Donatus?
Let us see for whom that virginity is kept. You can discover this without difficulty. See, I show you the Bridegroom, because He Himself has shown Himself. John bears witness of Him: “This is He who baptizes.”
O virgin, if you keep virginity for this Bridegroom, why do you hasten to the one who says, “I baptize,” when the friend of your Bridegroom has said, “This is He who baptizes”?
Again, your Bridegroom possesses the whole world. Why do you allow yourself to be seduced in one part of it? Who is the Bridegroom? “For God is King of all the earth.”
Your Bridegroom possesses the whole world, for He bought all. See at what great price He bought it, so that you may understand what He bought.
What price did He pay? He gave His Blood. When did He give and pour out His Blood? During His Passion.
Do you not sing to your Bridegroom, or imagine that you sing, remembering how the whole world was bought by Him? “They pierced My hands and My feet. They counted all My bones. They looked upon Me and made a spectacle of Me.
They divided My garments among themselves, and for My clothing they cast lots.”
You, bride, recognize the garments of your Bridegroom. For what garment was the lot cast? Ask the Gospel. See to whom you are betrothed. See from whom you have received the pledge of marriage.
Ask the Gospel. See what it tells you when it recounts the Lord’s Passion. There was a tunic there. Let us see what kind: woven from above.
What does the tunic woven from above mean, if not love? What does the tunic woven from above mean, if not unity? Consider this tunic, which even the persecutors of Christ did not tear.
For the Gospel says, “They said to one another, ‘Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it.’” See what you heard in the psalm. The persecutors did not tear the garment, but Christians tear the Church.
What do I mean, brothers? Let us see clearly what He bought. He bought where He paid the price. For whom did He pay it?
If only for Africa, let us be Donatists, and be called not Donatists but Christians, since Christ redeemed only Africa, though even here there are not only Donatists.
But in His purchase He did not remain silent about what He bought. He left records. Glory to God, He has not deceived us. That bride must hear and understand for whom she must keep virginity.
In that psalm where it is said, “They pierced My hands and My feet. They counted all My bones,” the Lord’s Passion is revealed with complete clarity.
This psalm is read every year in the last week before all the people, in the approach to the Lord’s Passion. It is read among us and among them. See, brothers, what He bought there.
Let the commercial records be read. Hear what He bought there: “All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations shall worship before Him. For the kingdom is His, and He rules over the nations.”
See what He bought. See that God is King of all the earth. He is your Bridegroom. What then? Do you want to reduce such riches to scraps?
Understand that He bought all, and you say, “Here is Your portion.” O that you would please the Bridegroom. O that you would not acquire the name of one defiled.
And what is more grievous, defiled in heart, not in body. You love a man instead of Christ. You love the one who says, “I baptize.”
You do not hear the friend of the Bridegroom, who said, “This is He who baptizes.” You do not hear the one who said, “He who has the bride is the bridegroom.”
“I do not have the bride,” John says. “Who then am I?” “The friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice.”
It is clear, my brothers, that neither keeping virginity, nor practicing continence, nor distributing alms will help them. All that is praised in the Church will not help them, because they tear unity, that tunic of love.
What do they do? Many of them are eloquent, great orators, torrents of speech. Do they speak like Angels?
Let them hear the friend of the Bridegroom, who is jealous for the Bridegroom, not for himself: “If I speak with the tongues of men and of Angels, but have not love, I am sounding brass or a clanging cymbal.”
But what do they say? “We have Baptism.” You have it, but it is not yours. To have something is one thing; to own it is another.
You have Baptism because you received it in order to be baptized. You received it as one enlightened, if you do not cast yourself into darkness.
When you give it, you give as a minister, not as owner. You proclaim as a herald, not as judge. The judge speaks through the herald, and it is not written in the records, “The herald said,” but “The judge said.”
Therefore consider whether what you give is in your power. If you received it, confess with the friend of the Bridegroom: “A man can receive nothing unless it has been given him from heaven.”
THEOSIS