Sermo in rogationibus
by Avitus of Vienne
Source text: Public Domain. English translation/apparatus/encoding: CC BY-NC 4.0, Wroot Press.
https://migne.app/pl/59/sermo-in-rogationibus/
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## Sermon on the Rogations

[0391B]We read in the history of the Kings that a certain famous one of the prophets, on the scant nourishment of a food from above, accomplished for many days a very long journey without any support of earthly food: so far did the power of the divine benefit prevail in a human body, its infirmity set aside. But this comparison is at the moment a matter of the discourse, not its ground. So then for us also, who run a certain yearly journey through a diversity of doings, of chances, of fears, there is taken up a bread of the Rogations, held out as it were from heaven, to strengthen us amid these things: whose sturdiness and wholesomeness may not only supply the want of a past barrenness, but may also shut out the peril of famine from our spirit, which lives not by bread alone but by the word of God. But if anyone wonders at Rogations instituted in our own age, which for so long a time before the multitude of the Churches [0391C] did not know, it is plain that such a man is able to disparage even the gifts of redemption, which came at the end of the ages when the world's span was already nearly spent. Let each surely look to what he thinks: let the raving man laugh at the quality of the medicine, let the despairing man be ignorant of it — but let the man who has often tried it judge otherwise. Yet who is there so entirely sound that he has no need of medicine, that he succumbs to no disease of an ailing soul, that he neither burns with desire, nor grows pale with avarice, nor is livid with envy, nor swells with pride, nor is hot with anger, nor itches with slander? If, therefore, anyone is conscious to himself of any weariness from these things — he who at every [0392B] season owes penitence — let him not refuse a three days' observance. And this too the prophecy which has been read intimates in full and ordered arrangement, if it be unfolded in its several steps, beginning thus from the opening of the discourse: *You,* he says, *have I known out of all the kindreds of the earth [n: (Amos III, 2)]*. Here at once the people of the Jews hurls itself into a kind of plunder, not out of love but out of ambition, that it may seem to have been admitted before all others to the acquaintance of divine intimacy. But let the occasion for clamoring here cease, since rather, under the judgment of reason, what is certain in the matter must be measured by the precise force of the words. *You have I known* — he did not say Among all, but *Out of all the kindreds of the earth.* And who are they that are gained out of all the kindreds of the earth, but they who, gathered into one from the whole body of the nations, are made out of the world's diverse parts one people, and out of [0392C] many members under Christ the head one body? For the acknowledging and the preaching of which calling the most blessed Peter afterwards, fixed in a trance of mind, saw a certain linen sheet coming down from heaven, which, let down by its four corners with a swelling fold, held every kind of living thing together with the birds and the creeping things; and he was admonished that he should himself kill what he would for the refreshment he needed. Such an appetite indeed he shuddered at, through the observance of the law, when such a manner of foods was enjoined; but presently the divine word came to him: *What God,* it says, *hath cleansed, call thou not unclean* [0393A] [n: (Act. X, 15)]. And he answered: *In truth,* he says, *I have found that there is no respect of persons with God; but in every people and nation he that feareth God and doeth his will is acceptable to him [n: (Ibid., 34)]*. Then, therefore, you see with what unity those agree who have been known out of all the kindreds of the earth — namely, the prophets and the apostles. This assuredly is what the reading also now says: *Shall two walk together, unless they have agreed [n: (Amos III, 3)]*? Now there is agreement between two, Christ and Moses, for the latter wrote of the former. There is agreement between the law and grace, for . . . . . . . the one imposed the more strictly, that the other might the more preciously loosen. There is agreement between truth and prophecy, for the one brought forth what the other conceived. Among the Jews these two do not walk together, and therefore they do not accord. For between the two Testaments themselves they set certain petty distinctions. To [0393B] the one true God there is no going save by one road. Certainly, if for whatever other reasons it may be by a different one, by an opposed one it cannot be. But with us these two are joined together and agree. There is, however, in this word of the prophet something also that may be taken personally, if that very duality which must needs agree be first in one man, and then in the human race. For our spirit and our body are compacted out of the quality of an unlike substance. These two can in no way run the way of this world unless, keeping between themselves the law of the divine ordinance, they consent together. For if the spirit be not made subject to the flesh, but rather the flesh yield to the mind for the reining in of concupiscence, the concord of reason leads the two together by the way of the law to the fatherland of eternity. But if, while the journey of this world is being run, [0393C] the flesh, with the spirit lagging, outstrips the soul and blocks the means of the way, sin's liberty having been granted it, then that very evenness of running which is enjoined upon man by the Creator fails, and the law of the mind, being hindered, begins to perish, and the law of the body to exalt itself; and now the two no longer go on together — there the one lies prostrate and the other presses it down. And these things, which is the more to be lamented, do not so much creep up on the unwitting as lord it over the stricken. This the discourse that follows teaches: *The lion,* it says, *hath roared, who will not fear? The Lord hath spoken, who will not prophesy [n: (Ibid.)]*? Sin appears far off — why do we not flee? Scripture cries out close at hand — why do we not believe? Who is the roaring lion, save he of whom the Apostle says that *your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about seeking to devour you [n: (I Petr. I, 8)]*? The incontinence of his fury brings it about [0393D] that he who sends his roar far ahead does not lie silently in ambush; but he hears the roar and takes no heed who carries with him the awareness of the commandment to the very beginnings of sin, and he is straightway assailed with a raging bite, unless he is frightened by the hearing sent before him. And this indeed we conjecture not absurdly, for at once in what follows the quality of that bite is shown: *As,* it says, *if a shepherd should rescue out of the lion's mouth two legs of a sheep, or the tip of an ear [n: (Amos III, 12)]*. The shepherd is for us beyond doubt that good one who, leaving the ninety-nine sheep, did not disdain to seek the one [0394A] that had strayed. But it is worth the labor to look more carefully at this: that those ninety-nine which this shepherd left on the mountains he did not desert when he was made manifest in the flesh, remaining as he did in his birth. For they plainly bear the figure of the angels who glory in the heavenly height, and who assuredly can no longer stray. For the lion of whom we spoke above, after that ruin of his own fall — in which, aspiring to a partnership of the Divinity, he was made even more wretched than man, while he disdained to be lower than his Creator — was stripped of all the dignity of archangelic power. Yet to the fall of his own casting-down he bound whatever small power of the heavenly ministers he could, that he might not perish alone. And this much of that vigor of an eminent creature still remains to them: that, already suffering the damnation to come while [0394B] they foreknow it, having lost the deserving of life, they cannot have even the remedy of dying. And so from that fall, as I have said, whoever remained in the love of his Maker and in the honor of angelic blessedness could not thereafter be led astray, and therefore could not be imperilled; and it came about at the beginning with the angels as it must be done at the end with men, namely, that the course of salvation and of perdition, once unrolled, should be brought to its term when the number is completed and fulfilled. These sheep, then, of the height above the good shepherd left, and came to that one lost sheep, in whose signifying the human race lay; and that sheep, which, gnawed by this lion, could not of itself climb up to those ninety-nine, he bore upon his own shoulders, because he raised it up in his own body; and when with the man of the flesh he had assumed he returned to the heights of heaven, [0394C] he brought back to the angels that very sheep which had strayed out of paradise. Wherefore it is now plain who the shepherd is who frees the two legs and the part of the ear, and who the lion is who devours the rest: that is, this is Christ, that is the devil. But leaving aside as best we may the carnal consideration, let us see what is that least part of the body which we read remained to the devourer. For I do not think that that good shepherd would have wished with so much zeal to rescue a thing so torn apart and nearly consumed, unless he knew that in that very fragment there was still something of throbbing life. This sheep, as we have already said, is assuredly any sinner whatever, if, having strayed from the folds that shelter him, he is by his own fault to run upon the beast, once he has turned aside from the shepherd. For while he walks through the wilderness — that is, while he ponders empty and perishing things — the devil meets him, and assails his thought [0394D] with the bite of a pestilent persuasion. And when he has now begun to hold in his power the concupiscence of the captive man, the ravenous mangler has in a manner swallowed his forward part. And yet if the deed does not follow upon the concupiscence and the resolve of sin, two legs as it were are set free — that is, the hinder part, which had not yet been eaten. For even if through concupiscence he has lost in the lion's throat certain forward feet of his thinking, yet the shepherd's mercy has snatched away the remaining steps of deed, which he did not carry through to accomplishment. [0395A] It is to be noted, however, that he has freed that portion of the body which mingled itself with the tip of the ear, and which is seen to remain over. For after he had said, *as if a shepherd should rescue two legs,* he added *and the tip of an ear.* Our ear, then, is our obedience: for when we pray and come to ourselves again, the lion devours the first part of that ear, and the shepherd looses the last. The first part of the ear is *Thou shalt not covet.* This has already been swallowed down, because the thought has coveted. The next part is, *Go not after thy lusts.* And so, if we do not fulfill in deed the evil which we have conceived in thought, then, the former part of obedience being wounded, that part also which is last is rescued from the lion's mouth. How? Assuredly through penitence and amendment. And the reading itself unfolds these things in manifold ways throughout, [0395B] as the Lord recounts what things and of what sort we have suffered and yet do not come to ourselves again: *I sent upon you want of bread, the setting of teeth on edge; I smote you with a burning wind [n: (Amos IV, 6)]*. There is want of bread, that we may know that when one departs from the Lord there is nothing to live by. But whence is the setting of teeth on edge contracted? I think that fits which Solomon says in a certain place, when he set down a comparison, saying: *As a sour grape is harmful to the teeth.* Now the sour grape is a promise seized before its time, and a fullness of time striven for while it is deferred. For that we should wish to have in this world the sweetness and delight which is promised us in eternity is quite unripe and sour. Of this grape, still harsh and green, Adam within paradise tasted not the wine but the venom, to his own destruction and ours; and because the parents had eaten [0395C] a sour grape, the teeth of the sons were set on edge. But Ezekiel, foreseeing that the debt of origin was to be discharged by Christ's paying it, speaks thus: *As I live, saith the Lord, that proverb shall be no more in Jerusalem: The fathers have eaten a sour grape, and the teeth of the sons are set on edge [n: (Ezech. XVIII, 3)]*. Now it does not harm you, whatever Adam was — what he coveted proudly, what he presumed unlawfully, what he desired incautiously; do you fear for yourself the setting of teeth on edge from your own eating; do you restrain the touch of appetite from unprofitable greed. You desire a sour grape, but wait for the ripeness of the promise. That delight is not owed to your own age. If you seek a sweet one, await the heavenly; if you crave a human one, you will suffer a harsh one. But what is the glory of the world, save that very [0395D] burning wind which he names below? Whose gentleness, even if it delights men, yet its terror strikes down its lovers: *And because not even so did ye return to me, saith the Lord, now* ( *prepare to meet thy God, O Israel [n: (Amos IV, 10)]*. Paul the Apostle indeed says [n: (I Thess. IV, 18)], where he describes the coming of the Redeemer, how we shall be caught up to the clouds to meet Christ in the air; here, however, I think this meeting [0396A] pertains to another. For here also, while yet living, we as it were go to meet God, if we embrace the precept that is held out to us; and because he is ready to pardon, let amendment go to meet him for repenting. But also whoever, for the love of eternal life, not only abstains from things unlawful but restrains himself even from things lawful, is to be judged to have gone to meet him of his own accord. For, to name any one instance by way of example: adultery being forbidden generally, simple marriage is permitted by the law; yet before it the brightness of virginity is set beyond all comparison, whence *he that giveth his virgin in marriage doeth well, and he that giveth her not doeth better [n: (I Cor. VII, 38)]*. This, then, we ought to hold concerning every observance: he who does ill flees; he who does well waits; he who does better goes to meet him). But now, after many and most devout admonitions which stand for our advancement [0396B] even according to the letter, he fittingly describes our Rogations at the very end of the reading, saying: *In all the streets and ways let there be lamentation (Amos V, 16)*. These ways and streets signify our doings, through which we run out our human manner of life in mortality. The ways are lesser faults, but the streets are broader sins, which send men into that ample and spacious way that leads to perdition; and many there are who find it. But by the narrow path one goes to him of whom the prophet foretold that no man heard his voice in the street — whose word assuredly did not sound in the license of sin. Therefore, since in this street is our doing, let our lamentation be there also — yet that this lamentation ought not to be confused and tumultuous the following sentence attests, saying, *He shall call the husbandman [0396C] to mourning, and to lamentation those who know how to lament [n: (Ibid.)]*. You perceive indeed that not all know this lamenting, but only those are to be called who have learned it. The husbandman is he who by that mourning of penitence and that affection of compunction purges his land — that is, his own substance — of thorns, tames it with precepts, waters it with tears, makes it fruitful with humility, enriches it with seed, multiplies it with harvest. For truly, according to the state of human calamity, there is none who does not know how to weep, since our begetting is such that even he who has learned nothing else knows this; so that the new age of infants also, as it enters this world and breaks out its first utterance in weeping, as though by a kind of prophecy of calamities, though it lacks all understanding, yet already brings forth in nature the lamentation which it does not yet have in knowledge, and without any support of teaching the very beginning [0396D] of its perils gives birth to a mastery of tears. Since these things are so, let us seek according to the spirit what difference there is between those who know and those who do not know how to weep. For according as the kinds and ranks of men are, individuals ought to have this knowledge of weeping. One cause of tears belongs to a king, another to a subject, another to a sinner, another to the just man. Secular [0397A] history relates that a certain Parthian king, when after a victory he had surveyed from a higher place the exceedingly numerous multitude of his army, wept; and being presently asked by his satraps what cause for weeping there could be in such felicity, he said: I mourn for this multitude, which, however victorious, must within no many years be brought wholly to its end, every one of it, by the law of nature. If to worldly wisdom . . . . . . . behold tears worthy of a worldly king — how fitting it would be even for a Christian prince, after his triumphs, thinking of death rather than of his high estate, not to swell with pride but to lament. What if, the occasion being at hand, we should know as our witness that weeping of a religious prince, when that David, great in valor, endowed with power, exalted in devotion, amid golden garlands and jewelled diadems, sighed rather for the crown of the heavenly kingdom with the most urgent ardor of burning [0397B] desire, saying, *When shall I come and appear before the face of my God [n: (Psal. XLI, 3)]*? Did he not have his tears for bread day and night, while they said to him every day: *Where is thy God?* — which surely was said to him not by an outward persecutor compelling him to deny, but by his own soul longing to see. For his spirit, intent upon heavenly things, spoke to him: Where is thy God? When shall I come and appear before his face? If, therefore, such tears became a holy king, what shall we now say of the very Holy One of the holy, who, before he showed his power of raising the four days' dead, spent upon him the weakness of weeping? And so in the highest degree such tears befit the Redeemer. For much did he there bewail. There, Adam's sin; there, the wages of sin, death; there, [0397C] Lazarus, that is, the human race; there, the dead man covered with a stone, that is, hardness of condition; there, the tearful comforters, that is, unbelief in the resurrection; there, that the fourth day had come upon the dead man — which four things befall sinners bewailed in the funeral of their souls: the first, of thinking evil; the second, of resolving on it; the third, of perpetrating it; the fourth, of persisting in the crime. [0398A] For all of us who run back from the fourth by way of Lazarus, that we may be raised again, there is need not only of the sweetness of showing mercy but also of the bitterness of weeping. After these things, since by such teaching he taught us also to lament, let us distinguish the knowledge and the unskillfulness of tears. Behold, today many come together to the church; if anyone, prostrating himself in prayer, begins with however much weeping to pray for something that pertains to the world — whether the happiness of a worldly manner of life, or the death of enemies, or the enlargement of riches, or length of this life, or the honor of secular dignities — do not tears of this kind show that the man does not know what he is lamenting, tears quite unprofitable and unskilled, which beyond doubt he has squandered as often as he has poured them out so? And this is not so wretched as if by weeping he should [0398B] ask that those things be granted him which many who know not God are seen to obtain by sinning, without any prayers at all. On the other hand you see another groaning and crying out: Lord, be merciful to me a sinner — lamenting his evil life, seeking a good one, washing away his offense with the same tears with which he waters his bed, showing to God in his groans the frailty of the flesh, the ardor of the mind, the horror of death, the love of the resurrection. This man is skilled in lamenting; this man is most learned in weeping. Such a tear does not fall to the ground, because it is commended to God, to whom it is said: *Thou hast set my tears in thy sight [n: (Psal. LV, 7)]*. Finally, since, if our Rogations are duly discharged, they cannot be accomplished without lamentation, I will distinguish the knowledge of lamenting as briefly as I am able. It is the greatest skill that weeping be spent here, [0398C] so that the setting of teeth on edge, of which we spoke above, may be healed, rather than that it be kept for that place where the gnashing of teeth is never to be ended. For to those it is said: Woe to you that laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep; but to these: Blessed are you that weep now, for you shall laugh and rejoice, and no one shall take your joy from you.
