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1. May the Lord our God be present, that He may grant us to
render you what we promised. For yesterday, if you remember, holy
brethren, when the shortness of the time prevented us from completing
the sermon we had begun, we put off until today the unfolding, by
God's assistance, of those things which are mystically put in hidden
meanings in this fact of the Gospel lesson. We need not, therefore,
now stay any longer to commend the miracle of God. For He is the
same God who, throughout the whole creation, worketh miracles every
day, which become lightly esteemed by men, not because of the ease
with which they are wrought, but by reason of their constant
recurrence. Those uncommon works, however, which were done by the
same Lord that is, by the Word for us made flesh occasioned greater
astonishment to men, not because they are greater than those which He
daily performs in the creation, but because these which happen every
day are accomplished as it were in the course of nature; but the others
appear exhibited to the eyes of men, wrought by the: efficacy of a
power, as it were, immediately present. We said, as you remember,
one dead man rose again, people were amazed, whilst no man wonders at
the birth every day of those who were not in being. In like manner,
who does not wonder at water turned into wine, although God is doing
this every year in vines? But since all the works which the Lord
Jesus did, serve not only to rouse our hearts by their miraculous
character, but also to edify our hearts in the doctrine of faith, it
behoves us thoroughly to examine into the meaning and significance of
those works. For the consideration of the meaning of all these things
we deferred, as you remember, till today.
2. The Lord, in that He came to the marriage to which He was
invited, wished, apart from the mystical signification, to assure us
that marriage was His own institution. For there were to be those of
whom the apostle spoke, "forbidding to marry,"' and asserting that
marriage was an evil, and of the devil's institution: notwithstanding
the same Lord declares in the Gospel, on being asked whether it be
lawful for a man to put away his wife for any cause, that it is not
lawful save for the cause of fornication. In His answer, if you
remember, He said, "What God hath joined together let not man put
asunder." And they that are well instructed in the catholic faith
know that God instituted marriage; and as the union of man and wife is
from God, so divorce is from the devil. But in the case of
fornication it is lawful for a man to put away his wife, because she
first chose to be no longer wife in not preserving conjugal fidelity to
her husband. Nor are those women who vow virginity to God, although
they hold a higher place of honor and sanctity in the Church, without
marriage. For they too, together with the whole Church, attain to a
marriage, a marriage in which Christ is the Bridegroom. And for
this cause, therefore, did the Lord, on being invited, come to the
marriage, to confirm conjugal chastity, and to show forth the
sacrament of marriage. For the bridegroom in that marriage, to whom
it was said, "Thou hast kept the good wine until now," represented
the person of the Lord. For the good wine namely, the gospel Christ
has kept until now.
3. For now let us begin to uncover the hidden meanings of the
mysteries, so far as He in whose name we made you the promise may
enable us. In the ancient times there was prophecy, and no times were
left without the dispensation of prophecy. But the prophecy, since
Christ was not understood therein, was water. For in water wine is
in some manner latent. The apostle tells us what we are to understand
by this water: "Even unto this day," saith he, "whilst Moses is
read, that same veil is upon their heart; that it is not unveiled
because it is done away in Christ. And when thou shalt have passed
over," saith he, "to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away."
By the veil he means the covering over of prophecy, so that it was not
understood. When thou hast passed over to the Lord, the veil is
taken away; so likewise is tastelessness taken away when thou hast
passed over to the Lord; and what was water now becomes wine to thee.
Read all the prophetic books; and if Christ be not understood
therein, what canst thou find so insipid and silly? Understand
Christ in them, and what thou readest not only has a taste, but even
inebriates thee; transporting the mind from the body, so that
forgetting the things that are past, thou reachest forth to the things
that are before.
4. Wherefore, prophecy from ancient times, even from the time when
the series of human births began to run onwards, was not silent
concerning Christ; but the import of the prophecy was concealed
therein, for as yet it was water. Whence do we prove that in all
former times, until the age in which the Lord came, prophecy did not
fail concerning Him? From the Lord's own saying. For when He had
risen from the dead, He found His disciples doubting concerning
Himself whom they had followed. For they saw that He was dead, and
they had no hope that He would rise again; all their hope was gone.
On what ground was the thief, after receiving praise, deemed worthy
to be that same day in Paradise? Because when bound on the cross he
confessed Christ, while the disciples doubted concerning Him.
Well, He found them wavering, and in a manner reproving themselves
because they had looked for redemption in Him. Yet they sorrowed for
Him as cut off without fault, for they knew Him to be innocent. And
this is what the disciples themselves said, after His resurrection,
when He had found certain of them in the way, sorrowful, "Art thou
only a stranger in Jerusalem, and hast not known the things which are
come to pass there in these days? And He said unto them, What
things? And they said, Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, who was a
prophet mighty in deeds and words before God and all the people: how
our priests and rulers delivered Him to be condemned to death, and
bound Him to the cross. But we trusted that it was He who should
have redeemed Israel; and today is now the third day since these
things were done." After one of the two whom He found in the way
going to a neighboring village had spoken these and other words, Jesus
answered and said, "O irrational, and slow of heart to believe all
that the prophets have spoken. Ought not Christ to have suffered all
these things. and to enter into His glory? And beginning from Moses
and all the prophets, He expounded unto them in all the Scriptures
the things concerning Himself." And likewise, in another place,
when He would even have His disciples touch Him with their hands,
that they might believe that He had risen in the body, He saith,
"These are the words which I have spoken unto you, while I was yet
with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the
law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the Psalms, concerning
me. Then opened He their understanding, that they might understand
the Scriptures, and said unto them, Thus it is written, that
Christ should suffer, and rise again from the dead the third day: and
that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name
among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem."
5. When these words of the Gospel are understood, and they are
certainly clear, all the mysteries which are latent in this miracle of
the Lord will be laid open. Observe what He says, that it behoved
the things to be fulfilled in Christ that were written of Him. Where
were they written? "In the law," saith He, "and in the
prophets, and in the Psalms." He omitted no part of the Old
Scriptures. These were water; and hence the disciples were called
irrational by the Lord, because as yet they tasted to them as water,
not as wine. And how did He make of the water wine? When He opened
their understanding, and expounded to them the Scriptures, beginning
from Moses, through all the prophets; with which being now
inebriated, they said, "Did not our hearts burn within us in the
way, when He opened to us the Scriptures?" For they understood
Christ in those books in which they knew Him not before. Thus our
Lord Jesus Christ changed the water into wine, and that has now
taste which before had not, that now inebriates which before did not.
For if He had commanded the water to be poured out of the
water-pots, and so Himself had put in the wine from the secret
repositories of the creature, whence He made bread when He satisfied
so many thousands; for five loaves were not in themselves sufficient to
satisfy five thousand men, nor even to fill twelve baskets, but the
omnipotence of the Lord was, as it were, a fountain of bread; so
likewise He might, on the water being poured out, have poured in
wine: but had He done this, He would appear to have rejected the
Old Scriptures. When, however, He turns the water itself into
wine, He shows us that the Old Scripture also is from Himself, for
at His own command were the water-pots filled. It is from the
Lord, indeed, that the Old Scripture also is; but it has no taste
unless Christ is understood therein.
6. But observe what Himself saith, "The things which were written
in the law, and in the prophets, and in the Psalms concerning me."
And we know that the law extends from the time of which we have
record, that is, from the beginning of the world: "In the beginning
God made the heaven and the earth.' Thence down to the time in which
we are now living are six ages, this being the sixth, as you have
often heard and know. The first age is reckoned from Adam to Noah;
the second, from Noah to Abraham; and, as Matthew the evangelist
duly follows and distinguishes, the third, from Abraham to David;
the fourth, from David to the carrying away into Babylon; the
fifth, from the carrying away into Babylon to John the Baptist; the
sixth, from John the Baptist to the end of the world. Moreover,
God made man after His own image on the sixth day, because in this
sixth age is manifested the renewing of our mind through the gospel,
after the image of Him who created us; and the water is turned into
wine, that we may taste of Christ, now manifested in the law and the
prophets, Hence "there were there six water-pots," which He bade
be filled with water. Now the six water-pots signify the six ages,
which were not without prophecy. And those six periods, divided and
separated as it were by joints, would be as empty vessels unless they
were filled by Christ. Why did I say, the periods which would run
fruit-lessly on, unless the Lord Jesus were preached in them?
Prophecies are fulfilled, the water-pots are full; but that the
water may be turned into wine, Christ must be understood in that whole
prophecy.
7. But what means this: "They contained two or three metretae
apiece"? This phrase certainly conveys to us a mysterious meaning.
For by "metretae" he means certain measures, as if he should say
jars, flasks, or something of that sort. Metreta is the name of a
measure, and takes its name from the word "measure." For meteon is
the Greek word for measure, whence the word "metretae" is derived.
"They contained," then, "two or three metretae apiece." What
are we to say, brethren? If He had simply said "three apiece,"
our mind would at once have run to the mystery of the Trinity. And,
perhaps, we ought not at once to reject this application of the
meaning, because He said, "two or three apiece;" for when the
Father and Son are named, the Holy Spirit must necessarily be
understood. For the Holy Spirit is not that of the Father only,
nor of the Son only, but the Spirit of the Father and of the Son.
For it is written," If any man love the world, the Spirit of the
Father is not in him." And again, "Whoso hath not the Spirit of
Christ is none of His." The same, then, is the Spirit of the
Father and of the Son. Therefore, the Father and the Son being
named, the Holy Spirit also is understood, because He is the
Spirit of the Father and of the Son. And when there is mention of
the Father and Son, "two metretae," as it were, are mentioned;
but since the Holy Spirit is understood in them, "three metretae."
That is the reason why it is not said, "Some containing two metretae
apiece, others three apiece;" but the same six water-pots contained
"two or three metretae apiece." It is as if he had said, When I
say two apiece, I would have the Spirit of the Father and of the
Son to be understood together with them; and when I say three
apiece, I declare the same Trinity more plainly.
8. Wherefore, whoso names the Father and the Son ought thereby to
understand the mutual love of the Father and Son, which is the Holy
Spirit. And perhaps the Scriptures on being examined (r do not say
that I am able to show you this today, or as if another proof cannot
be found), nevertheless, the Scriptures, perhaps, on being
searched, do show us that the Holy Spirit is charity. And do not
count charity a thing cheap. How, indeed, can it be cheap, when all
things that are said to be not cheap are called dear (chara)?
Therefore, if what is not cheap is dear, what is dearer than dearness
itself (charitas)? The apostle so commends charity to us that he
says, "I show unto you a more excellent way. Though I speak with
the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become
as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I know all
mysteries and all knowledge, and have prophecy and all faith, so that
I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And
though I distribute all my goods to the poor, and give my body to be
burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing." How great,
then, is charity, which, if wanting, in vain have we all things
else; if present, rightly have we all things! Yet the Apostle
Paul, setting forth the praise of charity with copiousness and
fullness, has said less of it than did the Apostle John in brief,
whose Gospel this is. For he has not hesitated to say, "God is
love."
It is also written, "Because the love of God is shed abroad in our
hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given us." Who, then, can name
the Father and the Son without thereby understanding the love of the
Father and Son? Which when one begins to have, he will have the
Holy Spirit; which if one has not, he will not have the Holy
Spirit. And just as thy body, if it be without spirit, namely thy
soul, is dead so likewise thy soul, if it be without the Holy
Spirit, that is, without charity, will be reckoned dead. Therefore
"The water-pots contained two metretae apiece," because the Father
and the Son are proclaimed in the prophecy of all the periods; but the
Holy Spirit is there also, and therefore it is added, "or three
apiece." "I and the Father," saith He, "are one." But far
be it from us to suppose that where we are told, "I and the Father
are one," the Holy Spirit is not there. Yet since he named the
Father and the Son, let the water-pots contain "two metretae
apiece;" but attend to this, "or three apiece." "Go, baptize
the nations in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the
Holy Ghost." So, therefore, when it says "two apiece," the
Trinity is not expressed but understood; but when it says, "or
three," the Trinity is expressed also.
9. But there is also another meaning that must not be passed over,
and which I will declare: let every man choose which he likes best.
We keep not back what is suggested to us. For it is the Lord's
table, and the minister ought not to defraud the guests, especially
when they hunger as you now do, so that your longing is manifest.
Prophecy, which is dispensed from the ancient times, has for its
object the salvation of all nations. True, Moses was sent to the
people of Israel alone, and to that people alone was the law given by
him; and the prophets, too, were of that people, and the very
distribution of times was marked out according to the same people;
whence also the water-pots are said to be "according to the
purification of the Jews:" nevertheless, that the prophecy was
proclaimed to all other nations also is manifest, forasmuch as Christ
was concealed in him in whom all nations are blessed, as it was
promised to Abraham by the Lord, saying, "In thy seed shall all
nations be blessed. But this was not as yet understood, for as yet
the 2water was not turned into wine. The prophecy therefore was
dispensed to all nations. But that this may appear more agreeably,
let us, so far as our time permits, mention certain facts respecting
the several ages, as represented respectively by the water-pots.
10. In the very beginning, Adam and Eve were the parents of all
nations, not of the Jews only; and whatever was represented in Adam
concerning Christ, undoubtedly concerned all nations, whose salvation
is in Christ. What better can I say of the water of the first
water-pot than what the apostle says of Adam and Eve? For no man
will say that I misunderstand the meaning when I produce, not my
own, but the apostle's. How great a mystery, then, concerning
Christ does that of which the apostle makes mention contain, when he
says, "And the two shall be in one flesh: this is a great
mystery!" And lest any man should understand that greatness of
mystery to exist in the case of the individual men that have wives, he
says, "But I speak concerning Christ and the Church." What
great mystery is this, "the two shall be one flesh?" While
Scripture, in the Book of Genesis, was speaking of Adam and Eve,
it came to these words, "Therefore shall a man leave his father and
mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and they two shall be one
flesh." Now, if Christ cleave to the Church, so that the two
should be one flesh, in what manner did He leave His Father and His
mother? He left His Father in this sense, that when He was in the
form of God, He thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but
emptied Himself, taking to Him the form of a servant. In this sense
He left His Father, not that He forsook or departed from His
Father, but that He did not appear unto men in that form in which He
was equal with the Father. But how did He leave His mother? By
leaving the synagogue of the Jews, of which, after the flesh, He
was born, and by cleaving to the Church which He has gathered out of
all nations. Thus the first water-pot then held a prophecy of
Christ; but so long as these things of which I speak were not
preached among the peoples, the prophecy was water, it was not vet
changed into wine.
And since the Lord his enlightened us through the apostle, to show us
what we were in search of, by this one sentence, "The two shall be
one flesh; a great mystery concerning Christ and the Church;" we
are now permitted to seek Christ everywhere, and to drink wine from
all the water-pots. Adam sleeps, that Eve may be formed; Christ
dies, that the Church may be formed. When Adam sleeps, Eve is
formed from his side; when Christ is dead, the spear pierces His
side, that the mysteries may flow forth whereby the Church is formed.
Is it not evident to every man that in those things then done, things
to come were foreshadowed, since the apostle says that Adam himself
was the figure of Him that was to come? "Who is," saith he, "the
figure of Him that was to come." All was mystically prefigured.
For, in reality, God could have taken the rib from Adam when he was
awake, and formed the woman. Or was it, haply, necessary for him to
sleep lest he should feel pain in his side when the rib was taken away?
Who is there that sleeps so soundly that his bones may be torn from him
without his awaking? Or was it because it was God that tore it out,
that the man did not feel it? Well, He who could take it from him
without pain when he was asleep, could do it also when he was awake.
But, without doubt, the first water-pot was being filled, there was
a dispensation of the prophecy of that time concerning this which was to
be.
11. Christ was represented also in Noah and in that ark of the
whole world. For why were all kinds of animals shut in, in the ark
but to signify all nations? For God could again create every kind of
animals. When as yet they were not, did He not say, "Let the
earth bring forth," and the earth brought forth? From the same
source He could make anew, whence He then made; by a word He made,
by a word He could make again: were it not that He was setting before
us a mystery, and filling up the second water-pot of prophetical
dispensation, that the world might by the wood be delivered in a
figure; because the life of the world was to be nailed on wood.
12. Now, in the third water-pot, to Abraham, as I have
mentioned before, it was said, "In thy seed shall all nations be
blessed." And who does not see whose figure Abraham's only son
was, he who bore the wood for the sacrifice of himself, to that place
whither he was being led to be offered up? For the Lord bore his own
cross, as the Gospel tells us. This will be enough to say concerning
the third water-pot.
13. But as to David, why do I say that his prophecy extends to
all nations, when we have just heard the psalm (and it is difficult to
mention a psalm in which the same is not sounded forth)? But
certainly, as I have said. we have been just singing, "Arise, O
God, judge the earth; for Thou shalt inherit among all nations."
And this is why the Donatists are as men cast forth from the
marriage: just as the man who had not a wedding garment was invited,
and came, but was cast forth from the number of the guests because he
had not the garment to the glory of the bridegroom; for he who seeks
his own glory, not Christ's, has not the wedding garment: for they
refuse to agree with him who was the friend of the Bridegroom, and
says, "This is He that baptizeth." And deservedly was that which
he was not made, by way of rebuke, an objection to him who had not the
wedding garment, "Friend, how art thou come hither? " And just as
he was speechless, so also are these. For what can tongue-clatter
avail when the heart is mute? For they know that inwardly, and with
their own selves, they have not anything to say. Within, they are
mute; without, they make a din. But whether they will or no, they
hear this sung even among themselves, "Arise, O God, judge the
earth; for Thou shalt inherit among the nations "and by not
communicating with all nations, what do they but acknowledge themselves
to be disinherited?
14. Now what I said, brethren, that prophecy extends to all
nations (for I wish to show you another meaning in the expression,
"Containing two or three metretae apiece "), that prophecy, I
say, extends to all nations, is pointed out, as we have just now
reminded you, in Adam, "who is the figure of Him that was to
come." Who does not know that from him all nations are sprung; and
that in the four letters of his name the four quarters of the globe, by
their Greek appellations, are indicated? For if the east, west,
north, and south are expressed in Greek even as Holy Scripture
mentions them in various places, the initial letters of the words,
thou wilt find, make the word Adam: for in Greek the four quarters
of the world are called Anatole, Dysis, Arktos, Mesembria. If
thou write these four words, one under the other, like four verses,
the capital letters form the word Adam. The same is represented in
Noah, by reason of the ark, in which were all animals, significant
of all nations: the same in Abraham, to whom it was said more
clearly, "In thy seed shall all nations be blessed:" the same in
David, from whose psalms, to omit other expressions, we have just
been singing, "Arise, O God, judge the earth; for Thou shalt
inherit among all nations." Now to what God is it said "Arise,"
but to Him who slept? "Arise, O God, judge the earth." As if
it were said, Thou hast been asleep, having been judged by the
earth; arise, to judge the earth. And whither does that prophecy
extend, "For Thou shalt inherit among all nations"?
15. Moreover, in the fifth age, in the fifth water-pot as it
were, Daniel saw a stone that had been cut from a mountain without
hands, and had broken all the kingdoms of the earth; and he saw the
stone grow and become a great mountain, so as to fill the whole face of
the earth. What can be plainer, my brethren? The stone is cut from
a mountain: the same is the stone which the builders rejected, and is
become the head of the corner. From what mountain is it cut, if not
from the kingdom of the Jews, of which our Lord Jesus Christ was
born according to the flesh? And it is cut without hands, without
human exertion; because Christ sprung from a virgin, without a
husband's embrace. The mountain from which it was cut had not filled
the whole face of the earth; for the kingdom of the Jews did not
possess all nations. But, on the other hand, the kingdom of Christ
we see occupying the whole world.
16. To the sixth age belongs John the Baptist, than whom none
greater has arisen among those born of women; of whom it was said,
that he was "greater than a prophet." And how did John show that
Christ was sent to all nations? When the Jews came to him to be
baptized, that they might not pride themselves on the name of
Abraham, he said to them, "O generation of vipers, who has
proclaimed to you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth
therefore fruit worthy of repentance;" that is, be humble; for he
was speaking to proud people. But whereof were they proud? Of their
descent according to the flesh, not of the fruit of imitating their
father Abraham. What said he to them? "Say not, We have Abraham
for our father: for God is able of these stones to raise up children
to Abraham." Meaning by stones all nations, not on account of their
durable strength, as in the case of that stone which the builders
rejected, but on account of their stupidity and their foolish
insensibility, because they had become like the things which they were
accustomed to worship: for they worshipped senseless images,
themselves equally senseless. "They that make them are like them,
and so are all they that trust in them." Accordingly, when men begin
to worship God, what do they hear said to them? "That ye may be the
children of your Father who is in heaven; who maketh His sun to rise
on the good and on the evil, and sendeth rain on the just and on the
unjust." Wherefore, if a man becomes like that which he worships,
what is meant by "God is able of these stones to raise up children
unto Abraham "? Let us ask ourselves and we shall see that it is a
fact. For of those nations are we come, but we should not have come
of them had not God of the stones raised up children unto Abraham.
We are made children of Abraham by imitating his faith, not by being
born of his flesh.
For just as they by their degeneracy have been disinherited, so have
we by imitating been adopted. Therefore, brethren, this prophecy
also of the sixth water-pot extended to all nations; and hence it was
said concerning all, "containing two or three metretae apiece."
17. But how do we show that all nations belong to the "two or three
metretae apiece"? It was a matter of reckoning, in some measure,
that he should say the same water-pots contained "two apiece," which
he had said contained "three apiece;" evidently in order to intimate
to us a mystery therein. How are there "two metretae apiece"?
Circumcision and uncircumcision. Scripture mentions these two classes
of people, and leaves out no kind of men, when it says,
"Circumcision and uncircumcision;" in these two appellations thou
hast all nations: they are the two metretae apiece. In these two
walls, meeting from different quarters, "Christ became the
corner-stone, in order to make peace in Himself." Let us show also
the "three metretae apiece" in the case of these same all nations.
Noah had three sons, through whom the human race was restored. Hence
the Lord says, "The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman
took and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened."
What is this woman, but the flesh of the Lord? What is the leaven,
but the gospel? What the three measures, but all nations, on account
of the three sons of Noah? Therefore the "six water-pots containing
two or three metretae apiece" are six periods of time, containing the
prophecy relating to all nations, whether as represented in two sorts
of men, namely, Jews and Greeks, as the apostle often mentions
them; or in three sorts, on account of the three sons of Noah. For
the prophecy was represented as reaching unto all nations. And because
of that reaching it is called a measure, even as the apostle says,
"We have received a measure for reaching unto you." For in
preaching the gospel to the Gentiles, he says, "A measure for
reaching unto you."
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