and cross the t's of what he has just been saying.
132 SAINT A UGUSTINE - SERMONS
May we keep Easter without any anxiety
6. So there you are; I've told you what, especially during these days of your fasting, of your Lenten observances, of your continence, what you—and I too—ought to do, in order to be at peace with your brothers and sisters. Let me too rejoice over your peace, just as I am saddened by your quarrels, so that all of you forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against someone else (Col 3:13), we may keep Easter without any anxiety, without any anxiety celebrate the passion of the one who owed nobody anything, and paid the price for all debtors. I mean, of course, the Lord Jesus Christ, who sinned against nobody, and practically the whole world sinned against him, and yet he didn't exact any punishment but promised a reward.
So we have him as a witness in our hearts, that if we have sinned against anyone, we sincerely ask pardon; that if anyone has sinned against us, we are ready to grant pardon, and that we pray for our enemies. Don't let's expect to be avenged, brothers and sisters. What is being avenged, but feeding on some¬ body else's misfortune? I know that people come every day, kneel down, bang their foreheads on the ground, sometimes wash their faces with tears, and in all this humility and distress of soul, say: "Lord, avenge me, kill my enemy." By all means pray that he may kill your enemy, and save your brother; let him kill enmity, animosity, and save nature. Pray like this that God may avenge you: may the one who was persecuting you perish, but the one who can be restored to you remain.7
NOTES
1. So Kunzelmann and La Bonnardiere; Fischer tentatively suggests 412-415. If pressed, I think I would cast my vote with him. I call this a sermon during Lent rather than at the beginning of Lent, because he sticks undeviatingly to one particular point, the putting of an end to quarrels and ani¬ mosities, and doesn't enlarge at all on the general significance of the penitential season; and more concretely because of the way he phrases the first sentence. So it was probably preached on the second or third Sunday of Lent, or one of the Saturday evenings preceding them.
2. An oblique reference to Mt 5:29, and parallel passages, about plucking out your eye and throwing it away, if it causes you to stumble, or scandalizes you.
3. Because God is love—and love is God; 1 Jn 4:8.16.
4. The prayer par excellence, the Lord's prayer.
5. He doesn't start on this point, in fact, until section 5 below; he continues first to dot the i's and cross the t's of what he has just been saying.
6. He makes a similar provision in his Rule, about religious superiors not being required to beg their subjects' pardon, in case it should damage their authority. There could be two minds about that.
7. In other words, may he—or she—be converted, as Saul was, and turned into a new person, a friend, as Saul was turned into Paul.