Sermon 196 bluntly warned the local Christians not to take part in the pagan celebration of New
SERMON 198 75 to those who have given to the poor; Come, blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom? And what will be said to those who haven't given; Cast them into everlasting fire (Mt 25:34.41)? Now, for the time being, those who are happy to hear what he said are of course standing all together with those who are not happy to hear it. I, now, am speaking to the true Christians. If you believe otherwise, hope otherwise, and love otherwise, then live otherwise, and prove how vastly different your faith, hope, and charity are by the vast difference of your morals. Listen to the apostle warning us: Do not, he says, bear the yoke with unbelievers. For how can justice share with iniquity? Or what companion¬ ship can light have with darkness? How can a believer be party to an unbe¬ liever? But what agreement can there be between the Lord's temple and idols? (2 Cor 6:14-16). And elsewhere he says, For what the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God. I do not wish you to become, he says, the associates of demons (1 Cor 10:20).
So their morals give pleasure to their gods. But the man who said I do not wish you to become the associates of demons, wished them to set themselves apart in life and morals from those who served demons. Now those demons take pleasure, don't they, in idle songs, they take pleasure in the trifling spectacle, in the manifold indecencies of the theaters, in the mad frenzy of the chariot races,7 in the cruelties of the amphitheater, in the unrelenting rivalries of those who take up quarrels and disputes, to the point of open hostilities, on behalf of pestilential persons, on behalf of a comedian, an actor, a clown, a charioteer, a hunter. When they do these things, it's as if they were offering incense to demons from their hearts. These spirits, given to seduction you see, rejoice in the people they have seduced, and feed on the bad morals and shameful and shocking life-style of those they have seduced and deceived.
But you, as the apostle says, have not so learned Christ; provided, of course, you have heard him and been educated in him (Eph 4:20-21). Do not, therefore, become their partners. For you were once darkness, but now light in the Lord; walk as children of light (Eph 5:7-8); so that we too, who preach the word of the Lord to you, may be able to rejoice with you and over you in that perpetual light.
NOTES
1. The sermon was certainly preached in Hippo Regius. I date it between Sermons 196 and 196A. Sermon 196 bluntly warned the local Christians not to take part in the pagan celebration of New Year's Day. We saw reason for supposing it was preached as late as 420. Sermon 196A appears to have been preached on a day of sollemnitas, probably 1 January since it concentrates on the circum¬ cision of Christ. It was largely directed at the Jews (who were obliquely praised in Sermon 196 for not taking part in the pagan festivities); and it doesn't mention these goings-on at all. They would seem to have died out when Sermon 196A was preached.
This Sermon 198, on the other hand, is all about them, clearly preached on the day itself; which