{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/107/1070053.htm","path":"chr/ecf/107/1070053.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/107/1070053.htm","text":"1. Yesterday\u2019s lesson in the holy Gospel, on which we spake as the Lord enabled us, is followed by to-day\u2019s, on which we purpose to speak in the same spirit of dependence. Some passages in the Scriptures are so clear as to require a hearer rather than an expounder: over such we need not tarry, that we may have sufficient time for those which necessarily demand a fuller consideration.\n2. \u201cAnd the Jews\u2019 passover was nigh at hand.\u201d The Jews wished to have that feast-day crimsoned with the blood of the Lord. On it that Lamb was slain, who hath consecrated it as a feast-day for us by His own blood. There was a plot among the Jews about slaying Jesus: and He, who had come from heaven to suffer, wished to draw near to the place of His suffering, because the hour of His passion was at hand. Therefore \u201cmany went out of the country up to Jerusalem before the passover, to sanctify themselves.\u201d The Jews did so in accordance with the command of the Lord delivered by holy Moses in the law, that on the feast-day of the passover all should assemble from every part of the land, and be sanctified in celebrating the services of the day. But that celebration was a shadow of the future. And why a shadow? It was a prophetic intimation of the Christ to come, a prophecy of Him who on that day was to suffer for us: that so the shadow might vanish and the light come; that the sign might pass away, and the truth be retained. The Jews therefore held the passover in a shadowy form, but we in the light. For what need was there that the Lord should command them to slay a sheep on the very day of the feast, save only because of Him it was prophesied, \u201cHe is led as a sheep to the slaughter\u201d? 1007 The door-posts of the Jews were sealed with the blood of the slaughtered animal: with the blood of Christ are our foreheads sealed. And that sealing\u2014for it had a real significance\u2014was said to keep away the destroyer from the houses that were sealed: 1008 Christ\u2019s seal drives away the destroyer from us, if we receive the Saviour into our hearts. But why have I said this? Because many have their door-posts sealed while there is no inmate abiding within: they find it easy to have Christ\u2019s seal in the forehead, and yet at heart refuse admission to His word. Therefore, brethren, I have said, and I repeat it, Christ\u2019s seal driveth from us the destroyer, if only we have Christ as an inmate of our hearts. I have stated these things, lest any one\u2019s thoughts should be turning on the meaning of these festivals of the Jews. The Lord therefore came as it were to the victim\u2019s place, that the true passover might be ours, when we celebrated His passion as the real offering of the lamb.\n3. \u201cThen sought they for Jesus:\u201d but with evil intent. For happy are they who seek for Jesus in a way that is good. They sought for Him, with the intent that neither they nor we should have Him more: but in departing from them, He has been received by us. Some who seek Him are blamed, others who do so are commended; for it is the spirit animating the seeker that finds either praise or condemnation. Thence you have it also in the psalms, \u201cLet them be confounded and put to shame that seek after my soul:\u201d 1009 such are those who sought with evil purpose. But in another place he says, \u201cRefuge hath failed me, and there is no one that seeketh after my soul.\u201d 1010 Those who sought, and those who did not, are blamed alike. Therefore let us seek for Christ, that He may be ours, that we may keep Him, and not that we may slay Him; for these men sought to get hold of Him, but only for the purpose of speedily getting quit of Him for ever. \u201cTherefore they sought for Him, and spake among themselves: What think ye, that He will not come to the feast?\u201d\n4. \u201cNow the chief priests and the Pharisees had given a commandment, that, if any man knew where He were, he should show it, that they might take Him.\u201d Let us for our parts show the Jews where Christ is. Would, indeed, that all the seed of those who had given commandment to have it shown them where Christ was, would but hear and apprehend! Let them come to the church and hear where Christ is, and take Him. They may hear it from us, they may hear it from the gospel. He was slain by their forefathers, He was buried, He rose again, He was recognized by the disciples, He ascended before their eyes into heaven, and there sitteth at p. 280 the right hand of the Father; and He who was judged is yet to come as Judge of all: let them hear, and hold fast. Do they reply, How shall I take hold of the absent? how shall I stretch up my hand into heaven, and take hold of one who is sitting there? Stretch up thy faith, and thou hast got hold. Thy forefathers held by the flesh, hold thou with the heart; for the absent Christ is also present. But for His presence, we ourselves were unable to hold Him. But since His word is true, \u201cLo, I am with you alway, even to the end of the world,\u201d 1011 He is away, and He is here; He has returned, and will not forsake us; for He has carried His body into heaven, but His majesty He has never withdrawn from the world.\n5. \u201cThen Jesus, six days before the passover, came to Bethany, where Lazarus was who had been dead, whom Jesus raised from the dead. And there they made Him a supper; and Martha served: but Lazarus was one of them that reclined at the table.\u201d To prevent people thinking that the man had become a phantom, because he had risen from the dead, he was one of those who reclined at table; he was living, speaking, feasting: the truth was made manifest, and the unbelief of the Jews was confounded. The Lord, therefore, reclined at table with Lazarus and the others; and they were waited on by Martha, one of the sisters of Lazarus.\n6. But \u201cMary,\u201d the other sister of Lazarus, \u201ctook a pound of ointment of pure nard, very precious, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped His feet with her hair; and the house was filled with the odor of the ointment.\u201d Such was the incident, let us look into the mystery it imported. Whatever soul of you wishes to be truly faithful, anoint like Mary the feet of the Lord with precious ointment. That ointment was righteousness, and therefore it was [exactly] a pound weight: but it was ointment of pure nard [nardi pistici], very precious. From his calling it \u201cpistici,\u201d 1012 we ought to infer that there was some locality from which it derived its preciousness: but this does not exhaust its meaning, and it harmonizes well with a sacramental symbol. The root of the word [\u201cpure\u201d] in the Greek is by us called \u201cfaith.\u201d Thou wert seeking to work righteousness: the just shall live by faith. 1013 Anoint the feet of Jesus: follow by a good life the Lord\u2019s footsteps. Wipe them with thy hair: what thou hast of superfluity, give to the poor, and thou hast wiped the feet of the Lord; for the hair seems to be the superfluous part of the body. Thou hast something to spare of thy abundance: it is superfluous to thee, but necessary for the feet of the Lord. Perhaps on this earth the Lord\u2019s feet are still in need. For of whom but of His members is He yet to say in the end, \u201cInasmuch as ye did it to one of the least of mine, ye did it unto me\u201d? 1014 Ye spent what was superfluous for yourselves, but ye have done what was grateful to my feet.\n7. \u201cAnd the house was filled with the odor.\u201d The world is filled with the fame of a good character: for a good character is as a pleasant odor. Those who live wickedly and bear the name of Christians, do injury to Christ: of such it is said, that through them \u201cthe name of the Lord is blasphemed.\u201d 1015 If through such God\u2019s name is blasphemed, through the good the name of the Lord is honored. Listen to the apostle, when he says, \u201cWe are a sweet savor of Christ in every place.\u201d As it is said also in the Song of Songs, \u201cThy name is as ointment poured forth.\u201d 1016 Attend again to the apostle: \u201cWe are a sweet savor,\u201d he says, \u201cof Christ in every place, both in them that are saved, and in them that perish. To the one we are the savor of life unto life, to the other the savor of death unto death: and who is sufficient for these things?\u201d 1017 The lesson of the holy Gospel before us affords us the opportunity of so speaking of that savor, that we on our part may give worthy utterance, and you diligent heed, to what is thus expressed by the apostle himself, \u201cAnd who is sufficient for these things?\u201d But have we any reason to infer from these words that we are qualified to attempt speaking on such a subject, or you to hear? We, indeed, are not so; but He is sufficient, who is pleased to speak by us what it may be for your profit to hear. The apostle, you see, is, as he calls himself, \u201ca sweet savor:\u201d but that sweet savor is \u201cto some the savor of life unto life, and to others the savor of death unto death;\u201d and yet all the while \u201ca sweet savor\u201d in itself. For he does not say, does he, To some we are a sweet savor unto life, to others an evil savor unto death? He called himself a sweet savor, not an evil; and represented himself as the same sweet savor, to some unto life, to others unto death. Happy they who find life in this sweet savor! but what misery can be greater than theirs, to whom the sweet savor is the messenger of death?\n8. And who is it, says some one, that is p. 281 thus slain by the sweet savor? It is to this the apostle alludes in the words, \u201cAnd who is sufficient for these things?\u201d In what wonderful ways God brings it about that the good savor is fraught both with life to the good, and with death to the wicked; how it is so, so far as the Lord is pleased to inspire my thoughts (for it may still conceal a deeper meaning beyond my power to penetrate),\u2014yet so far, I say, as my power of penetration has reached, you ought not to have the information withheld. The integrity of the Apostle Paul\u2019s life and conduct, his preaching of righteousness in word and exhibition of it in works, his wondrous power as a teacher and his fidelity as a steward, were everywhere noised abroad: he was loved by some, and envied by others. For he himself tells us in a certain place of some, that they preached Christ not sincerely, but of envy; \u201cthinking,\u201d he says, \u201cto add affliction to my bonds.\u201d But what does he add? \u201cWhether in pretence or in truth, let Christ be preached.\u201d 1018 They preach who love me, they preach who hate me; in that good savor the former live, in it the others die: and yet by the preaching of both let the name of Christ be proclaimed, with this excellent savor let the world be filled. Hast thou been loving one whose conduct evidenced his goodness then in this good savor thou hast lived. Hast thou been envying such a one? then in this same savor thou hast died. But hast thou, pray, in thus choosing to die, converted this savor into an evil one? Turn from thine envious feelings, and the good savor will cease to slay thee.\n9. And now, lastly, listen to what we have here, how this ointment was to some a sweet savor unto life, and to others a sweet savor unto death. When the pious Mary had rendered this grateful service to the Lord, straightway one of His disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was yet to betray Him, said, \u201cWhy was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor?\u201d Alas for thee, wretched man! the sweet savor hath slain thee. For the cause that led him so to speak is disclosed by the holy evangelist. But we, too, might have supposed, had not the real state of his mind been revealed in the Gospel, that the care of the poor might have induced him so to speak. Not so. What then? Hearken to a true witness: \u201cThis he said, not that he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief, and had the money bag, and bare 1019 what was put therein.\u201d Did he bear it about, or bear it away? For the common service he bore it, as a thief he bore it away.\n10. Look now, and learn that this Judas did not become perverted only at the time when he yielded to the bribery of the Jews and betrayed his Lord. For not a few, inattentive to the Gospel, suppose that Judas only perished when he accepted money from the Jews to betray the Lord. It was not then that he perished, but he was already a thief, and a reprobate, when following the Lord; for it was with his body and not with his heart that he followed. He made up the apostolic number of twelve, but had no part in the apostolic blessedness: he had been made the twelfth in semblance, and on his departure, and the succession of another, the apostolic reality was completed, and the entireness of the number conserved. 1020 What lesson then, my brethren, did our Lord Jesus Christ wish to impress on His Church, when it pleased Him to have one castaway among the twelve, but this, that we should bear with the wicked, and refrain from dividing the body of Christ? Here you have Judas among the saints,\u2014that Judas, mark you! who was a thief, yea\u2014do not overlook it\u2014not a thief of any ordinary type, but a thief and a sacrilegist: a robber of money bags, but of such as were the Lord\u2019s; of money bags, but of such as were sacred. If there is a distinction made in the public courts between such crimes as ordinary theft and peculation,\u2014for by peculation we mean the theft of public property; and private theft is not visited with the same sentence as public,\u2014how much more severe ought to be the sentence on the sacrilegious thief, who has dared to steal, not from places of any ordinary kind, but to steal from the Church? He who thieves from the Church, stands side by side with the castaway Judas. Such was this man Judas, and yet he went in and out with the eleven holy disciples. With them he came even to the table of the Lord: he was permitted to have intercourse with them, but he could not contaminate them. Of one bread did both Peter and Judas partake, and yet what communion had the believer with the infidel? Peter\u2019s partaking was unto life, but that of Judas unto death. For that good bread was just like the sweet savor. For as the sweet savor, so also does the good bread give life to the good, and bring death to the wicked. \u201cFor he that eateth unworthily, eateth and drinketh judgment to himself:\u201d 1021 \u201cjudgment to himself,\u201d not to thee. If, then, it is judgment to himself, not to thee, bear as one that p. 282 is good with him that is evil, that thou mayest attain unto the rewards of the good, and be not hurled into the punishment of the wicked.\n11. Lay to heart our Lord\u2019s example while living with man upon earth. Why had He a money bag, who was ministered unto by angels, save to intimate that His Church was destined thereafter to have her repository for money? Why gave He admission to a thief, save to teach His Church patiently to bear with thieves? But he who had formed the habit of abstracting money from the bag, did not hesitate for money received to sell the Lord Himself. But let us see what answer our Lord gave to such words. See, brethren: He does not say to him, Thou speakest so on account of thy thievishness. He knew him to be a thief, yet did not betray him, but rather endured him, and showed us an example of patience in tolerating the wicked in the Church. \u201cThen said Jesus to him: Let her keep it against the day of my burial.\u201d 1022 He announced that His own death was at hand.\n12. But what follows? \u201cFor the poor ye have always with you, but me ye will not have always.\u201d We can certainly understand, \u201cthe poor ye have always;\u201d what He has thus said is true. When were the poor wanting in the Church? \u201cBut me ye will not have always;\u201d what does He mean by this? How are we to understand, \u201cMe ye will not have always\u201d? Don\u2019t be alarmed: it was addressed to Judas. Why, then, did He not say, thou wilt have, but, ye will have? Because Judas is not here a unit. One wicked man represents the whole body of the wicked; in the same way as Peter, the whole body of the good, yea, the body of the Church, but in respect to the good. For if in Peter\u2019s case there were no sacramental symbol of the Church, the Lord would not have said to him, \u201cI will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven.\u201d 1023 If this was said only to Peter, it gives no ground of action to the Church. But if such is the case also in the Church, that what is bound on earth is bound in heaven, and what is loosed on earth is loosed in heaven,\u2014for when the Church excommunicates, the excommunicated person is bound in heaven; when one is reconciled by the Church, the person so reconciled is loosed in heaven:\u2014if such, then, is the case in the Church, Peter, in receiving the keys, represented the holy Church. If, then, in the person of Peter were represented the good in the Church, and in Judas\u2019 person were represented the bad in the Church, then to these latter was it said, \u201cBut me ye will not have always.\u201d But what means the \u201cnot always;\u201d and what, the \u201calways\u201d? If thou art good, if thou belongest to the body represented by Peter, thou hast Christ both now and hereafter: now by faith, by sign, by the sacrament of baptism, by the bread and wine of the altar. Thou hast Christ now, but thou wilt have Him always; for when thou hast gone hence, thou wilt come to Him who said to the robber, \u201cTo-day shalt thou be with me in paradise.\u201d 1024 But if thou livest wickedly, thou mayest seem to have Christ now, because thou enterest the Church, signest thyself with the sign of Christ, art baptized with the baptism of Christ, minglest thyself with the members of Christ, and approachest His altar: now thou hast Christ, but by living wickedly thou wilt not have Him always.\n13. It may be also understood in this way: \u201cThe poor ye will have always with you, but me ye will not have always.\u201d The good may take it also as addressed to themselves, but not so as to be any source of anxiety; for He was speaking of His bodily presence. For in respect of His majesty, His providence, His ineffable and invisible grace, His own words are fulfilled, \u201cLo, I am with you alway, even to the end of the world.\u201d 1025 But in respect of the flesh He assumed as the Word, in respect of that which He was as the son of the Virgin, of that wherein He was seized by the Jews, nailed to the tree, let down from the cross, enveloped in a shroud, laid in the sepulchre, and manifested in His resurrection, \u201cye will not have Him always.\u201d And why? Because in respect of His bodily presence He associated for forty days with His disciples, and then, having brought them forth for the purpose of beholding and not of following Him, He ascended into heaven, 1026 and is no longer here. He is there, indeed, sitting at the right hand of the Father; and He is here also, having never withdrawn the presence of His glory. In other words, in respect of His divine presence we always have Christ; in respect of His presence in the flesh it was rightly said to the disciples, \u201cMe ye will not have always.\u201d In this respect the Church enjoyed His presence only for a few days: now it possesses Him by faith, without p. 283 seeing Him with the eyes. In whichever way, then, it was said, \u201cBut me ye will not have always,\u201d it can no longer, I suppose, after this twofold solution, remain as a subject of doubt.\n14. Let us listen to the other few points that remain: \u201cMuch people of the Jews therefore knew that He was there: and they came not for Jesus\u2019 sake only, but that they might see Lazarus, whom He had raised from the dead.\u201d They were drawn by curiosity, not by charity: they came and saw. Hearken to the strange scheming of human vanity. Having seen Lazarus as one raised from the dead,\u2014for the fame of such a miracle of the Lord\u2019s had been accompanied everywhere with so much evidence of its genuineness, and it had been so openly performed, that they could neither conceal nor deny what had been done,\u2014only think of the plan they hit upon. \u201cBut the chief priests consulted that they might put Lazarus also to death; because that by reason of him many of the Jews went away, and believed on Jesus.\u201d O foolish consultation and blinded rage! Could not Christ the Lord, who was able to raise the dead, raise also the slain? When you were preparing a violent death for Lazarus, were you at the same time denuding the Lord of His power? If you think a dead man one thing, a murdered man another, look you only to this, that the Lord made both, and raised Lazarus to life when dead, and Himself when slain.\nPs. cxlii. 4, marg.\n280:1011 280:1012\nThe full expression is nardi pistici pretiosi: Gr. \u201c\u03bd\u03ac\u03c1\u03b4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c0\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03b9\u03ba\u1fc6\u03c2 \u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03c5\u03c4\u03af\u03bc\u03bf\u03c5:\u201d \u03c0\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03b9\u03ba\u03cc\u03c2 from \u03c0\u03af\u03c3\u03c4\u03b9\u03c2, trustworthy, hence, genuine, pure;\u2014though Aug. seems to indicate that it may also have had a geographical reference.\u2014Tr.\n280:1013 280:1014 280:1015 280:1016 280:1017 281:1018\nPhil. 1:16, 18.\n281:1019\n\u201c\u1f10\u03b2\u03ac\u03c3\u03c4\u03b1\u03b6\u03b5\u03bd,\u201d as used by John, may signify here, carried, bore, in a good sense; or carried off as a thief: for the latter sense, see chap. John 20.15.\u2014Tr.\n281:1020 281:1021 282:1022\nAugustin\u2019s words, sinite illam, ut in diem sepultur\u00e6ae me\u00e6 servet illud, as rendered above, differ considerably from those of our English version, and are more difficult to understand; but they agree with by far the larger number of Greek mss., which read, \u1fce\u0391\u03c6\u03b5\u03c2 \u03b1\u1f50\u03c4\u1f74\u03bd \u1f35\u03bd\u03b1 \u03b5\u1f30\u03c2 \u03c4\u1f74\u03bd \u1f21\u03bc\u03ad\u03c1\u03b1\u03bd \u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6 \u1f10\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03c6\u03b9\u03b1\u03c3\u03bc\u03bf\u1fe6 \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c4\u03b7\u03c1\u03ae\u03c3\u1fc3 \u03b1\u1f50\u03c4\u03cc. Our English version, \u201cLet her alone: against the day of my burying hath she kept this,\u201d is taken from mss. which omit \u1f35\u03bd\u03b1, and have \u03c4\u03b5\u03c4\u03ae\u03c1\u03b7\u03ba\u03b5\u03bd instead of \u03c4\u03b7\u03c1\u03ae\u03c3\u1fc3.\u2014Tr.\n282:1023 282:1024 282:1025 282:1026","title":"Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Vol. VII: Lectures or Tra...","type":"page"}