25. "He scattereth mist like ashes." "He scattereth," saith the Psalmist, "mist like ashes." Who? He "who giveth snow like wool." For whom He predestined, He calleth to repentance; for "whom He predestined, them He also called." But "ashes" are connected with repentance. Hear Him calling to repentance, when He upbraided certain cities, saying, "Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works which have been done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they had long ago repented in dust and ashes." [5946] Therefore, "He scattereth mist like ashes." What is, "He scattereth mist like ashes"? When a man is called to learn about God, and it is said to him, "Receive the truth;" he beginneth to wish to receive the Truth, but is not able; he seeth that He is under a sort of darkness, which before he saw not....Wander not in the mist, follow in faith. But forasmuch as thou endeavourest to see and art not able, repent of thy sins, for mist is scattered like ashes. Repent thee now of having been obstinate against God, repent of having followed thine own evil ways. Thou hast come into this state where it is difficult for thee to see the vision of bliss, and the mist will be healthful to thee, which God scattereth like ashes. Thou thyself art as yet a mist, but like ashes. For they that are penitent, as yet roll themselves in ashes, my brethren, testifying, as it were, that they are like it, saying unto God, "I am ashes." For a certain Scripture saith, "I have despised myself, and wasted away, I have reckoned myself earth and ashes." [5947] This is the humility of the penitent. When Abraham speaketh to his God, and wisheth the burning of Sodom to be disclosed to him, he saith, "I am but earth and ashes." [5948] How hath this humility ever been found in great and holy men!
26. "Who sendeth His crystal like morsels of bread" (ver. 17). We need not spend our toil again in saying what crystal is. We have already said it, and I do not think that ye, beloved, have forgotten it. What is then, "He sendeth His crystal like morsels of bread"? What is "crystal"? It is very hard, it is very tightly congealed; it can not, like snow, be easily melted. Snow, hardened by many years' duration, and by the succession of ages, is called "crystal," and this "He sendeth like morsels of bread." What meaneth this? They were too hard, no longer fit to be compared to snow, but to crystal; but they too are predestinated and called, and some of them even so as to feed others, to be useful to others also. And what need is there to enumerate many, whom we happen to know, this one and that one? Every one when he thinks can recall to mind how hardened and obstinate some of those whom he knows have been, how they have struggled against the truth; yet now they preach the truth, they have been made morsels of bread. Who is that one Bread? "We being many," saith the Apostle, "are one Body in Christ;" [5949] he saith also, "we being many are one Bread and one Body." [5950] If then the whole Body of Christ is one Bread, the members of Christ are morsels of Bread. Of some that are hard He maketh members of Himself, and useful for feeding others....Behold, the Apostle Paul was a crystal, hard, resisting the truth, crying out against the Gospel, hardening himself, as it were, against the sun....Since then he was crystal, he appeared clear and white, but he was hard and very cold. How was he bright and white? "An Hebrew of the Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee." Behold the brightness of crystal. Now hear the hardness of crystal. "As touching zeal, persecuting the Church" [5951] of Christ. Among the stoners of the holy martyr Stephen, was he, hard, perhaps harder than all. "For he kept the raiment of all who were stoning," [5952] so that he stoned by the hands of all.
27. Thus then we see "the snow, the mist, the crystal:" it is good that He blow and thaw them. For if He blow not, if He Himself thaw not the hardness of this ice, "in the face of His cold who shall stand?" He abandoneth a sinner, behold, He calleth him not; behold, He openeth not his perception; behold, He poureth not in grace; let the man thaw himself, if he can, from the ice of folly. He cannot. Wherefore can he not? "In the face of His cold who shall stand?" Behold him then growing harder, and saying, "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" Behold, I am growing cold, behold, I am growing hard, what heat shall thaw me that I may run? "Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?....In the face of His cold who shall stand?" And who shall free himself, if God abandon him? Who is it that freeth? "The grace of God, through Jesus Christ our Lord." [5953] Are we then to despair? God forbid. For it goeth on, "He shall send out His Word, and melt them" (ver. 18). Let not then the snow despair, nor the mist, nor the crystal. For of the snow, as of wool, a garment is being made. That mist findeth safety in repentance: for, "whom He predestinated, them He also called." But even though they be the very hardest among the predestinated, though they have been for a long time hardening, and are become crystal, they will not be hard to the mercy of God. "He shall send out His Word, and melt them." What is "melt"? Understand not "melt" in an ill sense: it meaneth, He shall liquefy, He shall thaw them. For they are hard through pride. Rightly is pride called also dulness: for whatever is dull, is also cold....Despair not even of the crystal. Hear a saying of the crystal. "Who before was a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious." [5954] But wherefore doth God melt the crystal? That the snow despair not of itself. For he saith, "For this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might show forth all long-suffering, for a pattern to them that hereafter should believe on Him unto eternal life." [5955] God then calleth unto the Gentiles, "Be melted, O crystal; come, ye snows." "His Spirit shall blow, and the waters shall flow." Lo, the "crystal" and the "snows" are melted, they turn into water, "let them that thirst, come and drink." [5956] Saul, hard as crystal, persecuted Stephen unto death; Paul, now in the living water, [5957] calleth the Gentiles to the Fount....
28. "Announcing His Word unto Jacob, His Righteousnesses and Judgments unto Israel" (ver. 19). What "Righteousnesses," what "Judgments"? Because whatever mankind had suffered here before, when it was "snow" and "mist" and "crystal," it suffered for the deserts of its pride and uplifting against God. Let us go back to the origin of our fall, and see that most truly is it sung in the Psalm, "Before I was troubled I went wrong." [5958] But he who says, "Before I was troubled I went wrong," saith also, "It is good for me that Thou hast humbled me, that I may learn Thy Righteousnesses." [5959] These righteousnesses Jacob learnt from God, who made him to wrestle with an Angel; under the guise of which Angel, God Himself wrestled with him. He held Him, he exerted violence to hold Him, he prevailed to hold Him: He caused Himself to be held, in mercy, not in weakness. Jacob therefore wrestled, and prevailed: he held Him and when he seemed to have conquered Him asked to be blessed of Him. [5960] How did he understand with Whom he had wrestled, Whom he had held? Wherefore did he wrestle violently, and hold Him? Because "the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force." [5961] Wherefore then did he wrestle? Because it is with toil. Wherefore do we with difficulty hold, what we so easily lose? Lest, easily getting back what we have lost, we learn to lose that which we hold. Let man have toil to hold: he will hold firmly, what he has only held after toil. These His judgments therefore God manifested to Jacob and Israel....
29. "He hath not done so to the whole race" (ver. 20). Let none deceive you: it is not announced to any nation, this judgment of God; namely, how the righteous and the unrighteous suffer, how all suffer for their deserts, how the righteous themselves are freed by the grace of God, not in their own merits. This is not announced to the whole race, but only to Jacob, only to Israel. What then do we, if He hath not announced it to the whole race, but only to Jacob, only to Israel? Where will we be? In Jacob. "He hath not manifested His judgments to them." To whom? To all nations. How then are the "snows" called, when the crystal is melted? How are the nations called, now Paul is justified? How, save to be in Jacob? The wild olive is cut off from its stock, to be grafted into the olive: now they belong to the olive, no longer ought they to be called nations, [5962] but one nation in Christ, the nation of Jacob, the nation of Israel...What is Israel? "Seeing God." Where shall he see God? In peace. What peace? The peace of Jerusalem; for, saith he, "He hath set peace for thy borders." There shall we praise: there shall we all be one, in One, unto One: for then, though many, we shall not be scattered.
[5901] Lat. CXLVI. Sermon to the people of Carthage.
[5902] 1 Cor. x. 31.
[5903] 1 Pet. iii. 7.
[5904] Ecclus. xv. 9.
[5905] Rom. v. 8.
[5906] Ps. xxxiv. 18.
[5907] Matt. x. 30.
[5908] Philip. ii. 15.
[5909] Ps. xl. 5.
[5910] Luke x. 17.
[5911] Luke x. 20.
[5912] Wisd. xi. 20.
[5913] [See this series, vol. iv. p. 364. Here is a digression upon men "not gentle,"--the Manichees.--C.]
[5914] 2 Cor. iv. 5.
[5915] Matt. xx. 26.
[5916] Luke x. 7, 8.
[5917] Luke vi. 30.
[5918] The Benedictine editors were unable to identify this text.
[5919] Rempublicam.
[5920] Fiscus. [The author says: "For know ye what fiscus means? Fiscus is a bag, and from the same source come also the words fiscella and fiscina. Think not that fiscus is a kind of dragon, because men are alarmed when they hear of the collector of the fiscus: the fiscus is the public purse. The Lord had one here on earth when he had the bag: and the bag was entrusted to Judas."--C.]
[5921] Aliquid fixum; other mss. fisco, which suits the context better; "prune off somewhat for the treasury,"i.e. Christ's treasury.
[5922] Luke xviii. 12.
[5923] Matt. v. 20.
[5924] 1 Pet. i. 18.
[5925] Ps. xx. 7.
[5926] Ps. lxxxiv. 10.
[5927] Utere felix. This and other like expressions seem, from Morcelli, Opera Epigraphica, vol. i. p. 415, to have been usual in inscriptions upon cups and like works of art, probably when given as presents.
[5928] Ps. lxxiii. 20.
[5929] A play on the double meaning of the word munus, which, meaning literally "a gift," is also used in a special sense for "as how of gladiators."
[5930] Unum.
[5931] 1 Cor. x. 17.
[5932] Unum.
[5933] Unus.
[5934] Speculatio.
[5935] Spectacula.
[5936] There is better reading in some mss.: fortè for fronte, "or they happen to know them."
[5937] Ps. xi. 5.
[5938] Seras.
[5939] Matt. xxiv. 12.
[5940] [Here were applauses. The Donatists were warlike.--C.]
[5941] Matt. v. 6.
[5942] 1 Cor. i. 24.
[5943] Wisd. viii. 1.
[5944] Matt. xvii. 2.
[5945] Eph. v. 27.
[5946] Matt. xi. 21.
[5947] Job xxx. 19, Vulg.
[5948] Gen. xviii. 27.
[5949] Rom. xii. 5.
[5950] 1 Cor. x. 17.
[5951] Philip. iii. 5, 6.
[5952] Acts xxii. 20.
[5953] Rom. vii. 24, 25.
[5954] 1 Tim. i. 13.
[5955] 1 Tim. i. 16.
[5956] John vii. 37.
[5957] John iv. 14.
[5958] Ps. cxix. 67.
[5959] Ps. cxix. 71.
[5960] Gen. xxxii. 24, etc.
[5961] Matt. xi. 12.
[5962] Gentes.
Psalm CXLVIII. [5963]
1. The subject of our meditation in this present life should be the praises of God; for the everlasting exaltation of our life hereafter will be the praise of God, and none can become fit for the life hereafter, who hath not practised himself for it now. So then now we praise God, but we pray to Him too. Our praise is marked by joy, our prayer by groans....On account of these two seasons, one, that which now is in the temptations and tribulations of this life, the other, that which is to be hereafter in everlasting rest and exultation; we have established also the celebration of two seasons, that before Easter and that after Easter. That which is before Easter signifieth tribulation, in which we now are; that which we are now keeping after Easter, signifieth the bliss in which we shall hereafter be. The celebration then which we keep before Easter is what we do now: by that which we keep after Easter we signify what as yet we have not. Therefore we employ that time in fastings and prayer, this present time we spend in praises, and relax our fast. This is the Halleluia which we sing, which, as you know, meaneth (in Latin), Praise ye the Lord. Therefore that period is before the Lord's Resurrection, this, after His Resurrection: by which time is signified the future hope which as yet we have not: for what we represent after the Lord's Resurrection, we shall have after our own. For in our Head both are figured, both are set forth. The Baptism of the Lord setteth forth to us this present life of trial, for in it we must toil, be harassed, and, at last, die; but the Resurrection and Glorification of the Lord setteth forth to us the life which we are to have hereafter, when He shall come to recompense due rewards, evil to the evil, good to the good. And now indeed all the evil men sing with us, Halleluia; but, if they persevere in their wickedness, they may utter with their lips the song of our life hereafter; but the life itself, which will then be in the reality which now is typified, they cannot obtain, because they would not practise it before it came, and lay hold on what was to come.