IN CHRISTI NATALEM DIEM; ITEM, IN ILLUD: ASCENDIT DOMINUS IN TEMPLUM MEDIANTE FESTO, ET DE MELCHISEDEC. IN MEDIA PENTECOSTE.
A Pomegranate, apple, date, and other fruits of the trees delight the bodily throat; but divine sermons, tempered with the affection of holy doctors and sent to teach the hearing, delight the throat of the soul. And as a person who has plucked fruits from the trees praises the trees themselves when he tastes them, so also he who has plucked the divine eloquence of teachers for his ears—having sent it to the mind and tasted the sweetness of the discourse—sends out praises from his lips to the teacher, saying: "How sweet are thy words to my throat, more than honey and the honeycomb to my mouth" (Ps. CXVII, 103)! And the most wise Solomon compares beautiful discourses to the honeycomb: "Beautiful discourses are a honeycomb" (Prov. XVI, 24). For just as the throat, when tasting foods, knows how to distinguish the sweet from the insipid, so also does the mind know how to distinguish good words from bad, as it is said in Job: "The throat tastes foods, but the mind discerns words" (Job XII, 11). And let no one think that while the master of the house has various trees in his own garden—palms, apples, olives—the Lord does not have various fruits of the fathers in the garden of the Church, who each, according to his own sweetness, bring forth fruits from the depth of the heart to be tasted by those who enter. For among these, one is like a flowering olive, leafy with faith and bearing fruit in works of piety; another like a palm, crowned with its branches for the victory brought back over the devil, and bestowing the sweetest fruit of liberality upon the poor—of whom Scripture says: "The just shall flourish like the palm" (Ps. XCI, 13). Another, like an apple tree, offers two delights to men, namely fragrance and sweetness to the throat; what does the spouse, the Church, say of him, praising him in the Song of Songs? "As the apple tree among the woods of the forest, so is my beloved among the sons of Israel," and, "In his shadow I sat with longing, and his fruit was sweet to my throat" (Cant. II, 3). But what shall I do, beloved, I who have only a few leaves and modest fruits, who am able neither to refresh those scorched nor to feed the hungry with the fruits of discourse? For it were to be desired for me that I learn the doctrine of the holy fathers along with you. But because the fear of God and your desire incite us to speak, having taken two or three passages from the sweetest Gospel, as if they were the fruits of palms, let us stir you up by tasting them: for so will you hasten eagerly and with a fervent spirit to the fruitful trees of the holy fathers. We have just heard the evangelist saying: "Mediante festo [the festival being half over] Jesus went up into the temple, and was teaching" (John VII, 14). He did not skip the word of the Gospel, because the time for the solemnity is present; the reading of the Gospel is appropriate for these things that are now being done, and the narration is suitable for the day; for the power of this passage is like a sister to the present feast. B Being half-way through the feast, Jesus went into the temple. But after the feast, he no longer goes up into the temple, but ascends into heaven. However, when the feast is half over, Jesus goes up into the temple. The feast means the day, not such as is celebrated among the Gentiles and Jews, where there is drunkenness, banquets, lascivious songs, the allurements of the voice, and varied dancing; but a feast that is holy and decorous for Christians, where there is not drunkenness and banqueting, but prayers, hymns, and supplications; where there are not lascivious songs that dissolve the body, but divine songs that strengthen the soul; where there are not varied dances, but the exultations of holy souls with joy. If you wish to know who the singers and dancers among us are, observe for me Isaiah singing and saying: "I will sing to my beloved a song of my beloved concerning my vineyard" (Isa. V, 1). See also the choir of holy women, Miriam the sister of Moses, who with other Israelite women sing triumphal hymns to God and say: "Let us sing to the Lord: for he is gloriously magnified" (Exod. XV, 1). Whose example David mentions, saying: "In the midst of young damsels playing on timbrels, bless ye God in the churches" (Ps. LXVII, 26). Nor is blessed David ashamed to dance before the God-bearing ark, as you may hear him saying: "And I will play, and I will laugh, and I will dance in the presence of the Lord." For John the Baptist, seeing the God-bearing grape while yet hidden in the womb of a woman who had not known a man, leaped for joy in the enclosure of the womb. "But when the festival was half over, Jesus went up into the temple." The temple is the dwelling place of God alone. For the Gentiles also say: "We have a temple," being ignorant that it is not a temple, but a place to be execrated. For where there is the shedding of blood, libations, the stench of idols, and the initiations of demons, there is not a temple, but a den of demons to be execrated. C But when the festival was half over, Jesus went up into the temple. The temple is a dwelling dedicated to God alone, where love and peace, where faith and chastity dwell. Therefore, it is necessary for the priest, who performs sacred rites for God, to be peaceful, tranquil, not greedy, without guile, not loving money; so that first God may be rightly established in his soul, and then he may transform the people into his own image. Any soul of a faithful person purified can be called a temple: "I will dwell in you, and will walk among you" (Lev. XXVI, 12); but the true, holy temple, the victim, and the priest is Christ himself: in whom, according to the divine apostle, "dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily" (Col. II, 9); to whom the Father said: "Thou art a priest for ever according to the order of Melchisedec" (Ps. CIX, 4). Now, having unexpectedly fallen into a great question, I am in doubt as to where to turn the eyes of my mind, and I do not know where to apply the rudder of teaching. For if the Apostle, falling into the mention of Melchisedec, hardly dared to discourse minutely about that matter, saying: "Of whom we have much to say, and hard to be intelligibly explained" (Heb. V, 11), what shall I say, who am as much inferior to the Apostle as anyone can judge? And as a traveler, as long as he traverses a plain and level road, walks smoothly; but when he arrives at some place most rough and rugged, where there is a mountain very high, he checks his step and, considering the labor of the climb, begins to walk with a slower pace, lest he quickly become exhausted: so also we, as long as we treated the plain and easy sequence of the Gospel, proceeded with a smooth pace of discourse; but when we came to a more sublime sentiment, we begin to explain by ascending more slowly through the heavenly ladder. What is this question, then, that has arisen among all Christians? Why, they say, did the Apostle, mentioning Melchisedec, say that he was without father, without genealogy (Heb. VII, 3), and that he had neither beginning of days nor end of life? That he was not a man here, but God. But many, not understanding the things that were said about him, have said he was greater than Christ, and they are called Melchisedecians; and disputing with us, in order to show that Melchisedec is greater than Christ, they bring forward this scripture to us as a witness: "Thou art a priest for ever according to the order of Melchisedec." How, they say, is Melchisedec not greater, according to whose image and order Christ is priest? Others, erring, say that he is the Holy Spirit. But we say that he was a man similar to us in passions, and not greater than Christ, nor indeed than John the Baptist: for the word of the Lord is true: "Amen I say to you, there has not risen among those born of women a greater than John the Baptist" (Matt. XI, 11). And so we prove him not to be greater than Christ. Let them tell us from what place they say he is, whether from the celestial, or terrestrial, or infernal? If they say that Melchisedec is from the celestial, or from any other places whatsoever, let them hear that he bows the knee to Christ: for the Apostle says: "To him every knee shall bow, and every D
A of Christ. But why do the unhappy ones not listen to the verse following this, written by the Apostle, so that they might learn that he is lesser than Christ? For he adds, saying, *Made like unto the Son of God*, just as we also were made in the image and likeness of Christ. But perhaps one of the listeners might ask and say: What then is it to be called "without father, without mother, without genealogy," concerning Melchizedek? To whom we shall reply, that the Jews have said that he was born of fornication, and for this reason he is not recorded in the genealogies by the Scripture. To whom we shall answer, "You have spoken wrongly; for we find others also born of fornication and recorded in the genealogies." Immediately Solomon, born of the wife of Uriah, was recorded in the genealogy, and Abimelech the son of Gideon, who was born of fornication, was recorded in the genealogy. For what reason then is Melchizedek not recorded in the genealogy? But since Melchizedek was a type of Christ, and bore the image of Christ. For this reason the Scripture passed over the father and the mother, and described him as without genealogy, so that in him, as in an image, we might behold Christ who is truly without father, without mother, and without genealogy. For Christ is without father on earth according to the flesh, and without mother in the heavens according to the Spirit, according to his divinity. Such too is he who has neither beginning of days nor end of life. For the Scripture did not record the genealogy of Melchizedek, but passed over both his birth and his passing, so that, as we said before, we might behold in him this true Melchizedek. For Melchizedek is interpreted as King of Righteousness, who is Christ, B having neither beginning of days nor end of life. For the Word of God had neither a beginning of days, nor did he ever cease or die; for Christ endures unto eternity. For the Melchizedekians argue against us, saying, "What then is that which the Father says to him, 'You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek'?" To whom we say that this Melchizedek was a just man, and truly bore the image of God in himself. Being moved, therefore, by a prophetic Spirit, and now perceiving the sacrifice about to be offered to God by Christ, he honored God with bread and wine, imitating the Christ who was to come. Since, then, the order of Aaron in the synagogue of the Jews offered sacrifice, not bread and wine, but calves and lambs, and glorified God with bloody sacrifices, God cries out to Jesus who was to be born of the Virgin Mary and says, "You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek," not according to the order of Aaron, who worshipped with calves and lambs and bloody sacrifices, but, "You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek," offering the sacrifice of the Gentiles in bread and wine unto the perpetual. But lest we seem, beloved, to be trifling by prolonging the discourse, we shall stop the discourse here and commend you to the fountain of the teachings of the Fathers, who shall both quench the thirst of your soul and make glad your hearts, filling them with the Holy Spirit, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be glory unto the ages of ages. Amen.
On the Mid-Pentecost
Wherever the Master is present as a fountain of life bodily, he pours forth many and various streams of philanthropy. He ascended into a mountain with the disciples, and puts forth the rewards of the beatitudes to those listening; he descended thence, and to those held by various diseases he bestowed the channels of healings; he came to the sheep-pool, and gave the paralytic the ability to walk; he entered into the house of Peter, and cooled his mother-in-law flaming with fever; he reached Bethany, and gave the drink of life to the four-day-dead Lazarus; he met the leper, and wiped away the scales of the affliction with the sponge of philanthropy; he came to the synagogue, and gave the withered member of the hand strength for active movement; he attended the wedding, and by a miracle poured out wine for the invited guests; and countless other things, which it is difficult to enumerate. He ascended also today into the temple, and put forth the rivers of his teaching to those listening. For you heard the evangelical lection, which the evangelist proclaimed to us loudly and in the middle of the feast, from a high pulpit, using the voice of the Levite like a certain trumpet. "Now, therefore," he says, "the feast being in the middle, Jesus went up into the temple, and C taught," the letter itself also full of philanthropy. For he did not say, of persecutions impending, or of grief present, or of despondency holding the disciples, and the instruction of other such things, about which the narrative of the Apostles constantly complained; but what does he say? "Now the feast being in the middle." Why the middle of the feast, tell me, John? Did Herod lay hands on him? Did the assembly of the Jews gather a wicked council, or was Judas again preparing for betrayal? "No," he says; "but what? Jesus went up into the temple, and taught." You have set before the Christ the things appropriate to Christ, you have attached to him the action suiting him. For it is the work of the Word to speak, and of the teacher to teach, and of Christ to put forth the messages of benefit to the needy. Jesus went up into the temple, and taught. O, the unsurpassable philanthropy! Where he was being stoned by degrees, there he enriched those stoning him with the teachings of his words. Jesus went up into the temple, and taught. Where the statutes of Moses were read, there he set before them the teachings of grace, not abolishing the law, but becoming the fulfiller of the law. For he himself also cried out in the Gospels, "I came not to destroy the law, but to fulfill it"; and Paul, having the Master speaking through his mouth, says, "For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness." Now the feast being in the middle, Jesus went up into the temple, and taught, admonishing all of the place of prayer, there making his discourse of instruction as the Word, where also the assembly of those plotting wickedness was gathered. The priest according to the order of Melchizedek went up into the temple, and taught, with many listening, D but none of the Jews understanding. For the prophet says concerning them, having eyes they see not and ears they have not heard. Jesus went up into the temple, and taught, branding the madness of the God-fighters; he went up into the temple, so that, having spread the nets of the heavenly teaching, he might make a rational catch of humans; Jesus went up into the temple, he ascended, but the Jews descended from the faith. Now the feast being in the middle, Jesus went up into the temple, and taught. The Jews therefore wondered, saying: How does this man know letters, having not learned? They wondered, but they did not believe; they were amazed at the excess of wisdom, but they did not repent, being petrified by the keenness of their wickedness. They were watching the physician offering the medicines, and being sick they did not accept the therapy; they saw the saviour, and loved the captivity; having the meadow of good things in their midst, they were gathering thorns; the harbor being present, the wretched ones were shipwrecked; wisdom pouring forth divine teachings, they did not wish to wash away the filth of murders; Christ spreading the wings of philanthropy, the offspring of vipers did not endure to be sheltered. "For how often," he says in the Gospels, "have I wished to gather your children, as a hen her chicks; and you would not?" The Jews therefore wondered saying, "How does this man know letters, having not learned?" O, the absurdity of things! You are ignorant of the Law, O Jew, and you are ignorant of the instructions of the law? You say, "How does this man know letters, having not learned?" Tell me, O enemy of the truth, how the Word, having not learned letters, attached the proper names to the animals? You do not examine the slave, and you demand an account of the Master, saying, "How does this man know letters?" Jesus answered and said, "My teaching is not mine, but his that sent me, the Father." And when is God sent by changing location? And when does he who fills all things come where he is present? The discourse is to the Jews, the utterance is not to those who know how to learn [or, are learned]. "My teaching is not mine, but his that sent me, the Father," who granted also the witness from heaven upon you all.