St. Augustine, Sermon XXXVIII.
21. But whoso forsaketh unity, violateth charity; and whosoever violateth charity, how great gifts soever he have, he is nothing. “If he speak with the tongues of men and of angels; if he knew all mysteries, if he have all faith, so as to remove mountains, if he distribute all his goods to the poor, if he give his body to be burned, and have not charity; it is nothing; it profiteth him nothing.”( 1 Cor. xiii. 1–3 . ) He possesseth all things to no useful end, who hath not that one thing by which he may use all these things well. So then let us embrace charity, “studying to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”( Eph. iv. 3 . ) Let not those seduce us who understand the Scriptures in a carnal manner, and who in making a bodily separation, are separated themselves by a spiritual sacrilege from the good corn of the Church which is spread over the whole world. For throughout the whole world hath the good seed been sown. That good Sower, the Son of Man, hath scattered the good seed not in Africa only, but everywhere. But the enemy hath sown tares upon it. Yet what saith the Householder? “Let both grow together until the harvest.”( Matt. xiii. 24 , etc. ) Grow where? In the field, of course. What is the field? Is it Africa? No! What is it then? Let us not interpret it ourselves, let the Lord speak; let us not suffer any one to make his guess at his own pleasure. For the disciples said to the Master, “Declare unto us the parable of the tares.” And the Lord declared it: “The good seed,” said He, “are the children of the Kingdom. But the tares are the children of the wicked one.” Who sowed them? “The enemy that sowed them,” said He,” is the devil.” What is the field? “The field,” said He, “is this world.” What is the harvest? “The harvest,” said He, “is the end of the world.” Who are the reapers? “The reapers,” said He, “are the Angels.” Is Africa the world? Is this present time the harvest? Is Donatus the reaper? Look then for the harvest throughout the whole world, throughout the whole world “grow unto the harvest,” throughout the whole world bear with the tares even until the harvest. Let not perverse men seduce you, that chaff so light, which flies out of the floor before the coming of the Winnower; let them not seduce you. Hold them fast even to this single parable of the tares, and suffer them not to speak of anything else. This man, one will say, surrendered[ 1104 ] the Scriptures; no, not so: but this other man surrendered them. Whosoever it might be who has surrendered them, has their faithlessness made void the faithfulness of God? What is “the faithfulness of God”? That which He promised to Abraham, saying, “In thy seed shall all nations be blessed.”( Gen. xxvi. 4 . ) What is the faithfulness of God? “Let both grow together until the harvest.” Grow where? Throughout the field. What is throughout the field? Throughout the world.
22. Here they say; “It is true both kinds did once grow throughout the world, but the good wheat is diminished, and confined to this our country, and our small communion.”[ 1105 ] But the Lord doth not allow thee to interpret as thou wilt. He who explaineth this parable Himself, shutteth thy mouth, thy sacrilegious, profane, and ungodly mouth, that is counter to thine own interests, while thou runnest counter to the testator, even as he calleth thee to the inheritance. How doth He shut thy mouth? by saying, “Let both grow together until the harvest.”( Matt. xiii. 30 . ) If the harvest hath come already, let us believe that the wheat has been diminished. Though not even then shall it be diminished, but gathered up into the barn. For so He saith, “Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into My barn.” If then they grow until the harvest, and after the harvest are gathered in, how are they diminished, thou wicked, thou ungodly one? I grant that in comparison with the tares and chaff the wheat is less in quantity; still “both grow together until the harvest.” For “when iniquity aboundeth, the love of many waxeth cold;”( Matt. xxiv. 12 . ) the tares and the chaff multiply. But because throughout the whole world wheat cannot be wanting, which “by enduring unto the end shall be saved, both grow together until the harvest.” And if because of the abundance of the wicked it is said, “When the Son of Man cometh, thinkest thou, shall He find faith on the earth?”( Luke xviii. 8 , Vulgate. ) and by this denomination are signified all those who by transgression of the law imitate him to whom it was said,” Earth thou art, and unto earth shalt thou return;”( Gen. iii. 19 , Sept. ) yet because of the abundance of the good also, and because of him to whom it was said, “Thy seed shall be as the stars of heaven, and as the sand of the sea;”( Gen. xv. 5 and xxii. 17 . ) is that also written, “Many shall come from the East and West, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, in the kingdom of God.”( Matt. viii. 11 . ) “Both” then “grow together until the harvest,” and both the tares or chaff have their passages in the Scriptures, and the wheat theirs. And they who do not understand them, confound them and are themselves confounded; and in their blind desire they make such an uproar, that they will not be silenced even by the clear manifestation of the truth.
23. See, they say, the Prophet says, “Depart ye, go ye out from thence, and touch no unclean thing;”( Isa. lii. 11 . ) how then for peace sake should we bear with the wicked, from whom we are commanded to “go out and depart that we touch not the unclean thing”? We understand that “departure” spiritually, they corporally. For I also cry out with the Prophet (for however mean a vessel I am, God maketh use of me to minister to you); I also cry out and say to you, “Depart ye, go ye out from thence, and touch not the unclean thing;” but with the touch of the heart, not of the body. For what is it to “touch the unclean thing,” but to consent to sin. And what is it to “go out from thence,” but to do what appertaineth to the rebuking of the wicked, as far as can be done, according to each one’s grade and condition,[ 1106 ] with the maintenance of peace? Thou art displeased at a man’s sin, thou hast not “touched the unclean thing.” Thou hast reproved, rebuked, admonished him, hast administered, if the case required it, a suitable discipline, and such as doth not violate unity; then thou hast “gone out from thence.” Now consider the actions of the Saints, lest perhaps this should seem to be an interpretation of my own. As Saints have understood these words, so surely ought they to be understood. “Go ye out from them,” says the Prophet. I will first maintain this meaning of the words from their customary use, and will afterwards show that that meaning is not my own. It often happens that men are accused; and when they are accused they defend themselves, and when the accused defends himself with good reason and justice, the hearers say, “He has got out of this.” Got out; whither has he gone? He abides still in the place where he was, yet has he “got out of this.” How has he got out of it? By the good account he has rendered, and by his most satisfactory defence. This is what the holy Apostles did when they “shook off the dust from their feet”( Luke x. 11 . ) against those who did not receive the message of peace which was sent to them. That watchman, “got out from thence,” to whom it was I said, “I have made thee a watchman unto the house of Israel.”( Ezek. iii. 17 . ) For it was told him “If thou warn the wicked, and he turn not from his wickedness, nor from his way, that wicked one shall die in his iniquity, and thou shalt deliver thy soul.”( Ezek. iii. 19 . ) This if he do, he “goes out from him,” not by a bodily separation, but by the defence of his own work. For he did what it was his duty to do; though the other, whose duty it was to obey, obeyed not. This then is that, “Go ye out from thence.”
24. So cried Moses and Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel. Let us see then if they acted thus, if they left the people of God, and betook themselves to other nations. How many and vehement rebukes did Jeremiah utter against the sinners, and wicked ones of his people. Yet he lived amongst them, he entered into the same temple with them, celebrated the same mysteries;[ 1107 ] he lived in that congregation of wicked men, but by his crying out “he went out from them.” This is “to go out from them;” this is not “to touch the unclean thing,” the not consenting to them in will, and the not sparing them in word. What shall I say of Jeremiah, of Isaiah, of Daniel, and Ezekiel, and the rest of the prophets, who did not retire from the wicked people, lest they should desert the good who were mingled with that people, among whom themselves were able to be such as they were? When Moses himself, Brethren, was receiving the law in the mount, the people below made an idol.( Exod. xxxii . ) The people of God, the people who had been led through the waves of the Red Sea which gave way to them, and overwhelmed their enemies who followed after, after so many signs and miracles displayed in plagues upon the Egyptians even unto death, and for “their” protection unto deliverance, yet demanded an idol, obtained an idol by force, made an idol, adored an idol, sacrificed unto an idol. God showeth His servant what the people had done, and saith that He will destroy them from before His Face. Moses maketh intercession for them as he was about to return to this people; yet had he a good opportunity of retiring and “going out from them,” as these persons understand it, that he might “not touch the unclean thing,” might not live among them; but he did not so. And that he might not seem to have acted thus from necessity rather than from love, God offered him another people; so that He might destroy these: “I will make of thee,” He said, “a great nation.” ( Exod. xxxii. 10 . ) But he did not accept it; he cleaveth to the sinners, he prayeth for the sinners. And how does he pray? O signal proof of love, my Brethren! How does he pray? Mark that, as it were, mother’s fondness, of which I have often spoken. When God threatened the sacrilegious people, Moses’ tender heart trembled, and on their behalf he opposed himself to the wrath of God. “Lord,” he says, “if Thou wilt forgive their sin, forgive; but if not, blot me out of Thy book which Thou hast written.”( Exod. xxxii. 32 . ) With what a father’s and mother’s[ 1108 ] fondness, yet with what assurance said he this, as he considered at once the justice and the mercy of God; that in that He is just, He would not destroy the righteous man; and that in that He is merciful, He would pardon the sinners.
25. It is now surely plain to your discernment,[ 1109 ] in what manner all such testimonies of the Scriptures are to be received; so that when Scripture says, that we must depart from the wicked, we are bid to understand this in no other sense, but that we depart in heart; lest by the separation from the good, we commit a greater evil than we shrink from in the union of the wicked, as these Donatists have done. But if they were truly good, and so had reproved the wicked, and not rather being themselves wicked, had defamed [ 1110 ] the good, they would for peace sake bear with any, be they who they might, seeing they have received the Maximianists[ 1111 ] as sound, whom they condemned before as lost. Undoubtedly the Prophet has said plainly, “Depart ye, go ye out from thence, and touch not the unclean thing.” But that I may understand what he said, I pay attention to what he did. By his own deeds he explains his words. He said, “Depart ye.” To whom did he say so? To the righteous of course. From whom did he bid them depart? From sinners and wicked men of course. I ask then, did he depart from such himself? I find that he did not. So then he understood it in another sense. For surely he would be the first to do what he enjoined. He departed from them in heart, he rebuked and reproved them. By keeping himself from consenting to them, he “did not touch the unclean thing;” but by rebuking them he “went out” free in the sight of God; and to him God neither imputeth his own sins, because he sinned not; nor the sins of others, because he approved them not; nor negligence, because he kept not silence; nor pride, because he continued in unity. So then, my Brethren, how many soever ye have among you, who are still weighed down by the love of the world, covetous, or perjured persons, adulterers, spectacle hunters, consulters of astrologers, of fanatics, of soothsayers, of augurs and diviners, drunkards, sensualists, whatever there is of bad that ye know ye have among you; show your disapprobation of it all as far as ye are able, that ye may in heart “depart;” and reprove them, that ye may “go out from them;” and consent not to them, that “ye touch not the unclean thing.”
Augustine, Saint. The Complete Works of St. Augustine: Cross-linked to the Bible and with in-line footnotes (pp. 11641-11648). Kindle Edition.
Topic: St. Augustine - Reflections on Isa. lii. 11 ("Depart ye, go ye out from thence") (Read 6265 times)