10. See Rom 12:16.
SERMON 218C 197
3. For example, by calming the storm, casting out demons, and so on. 4. Emending divina celsitudine to divinae celsitudinis. The reading of the text puts celsitudine in opposition to humilitate, and so has the apostle relying both on God's humility and his majesty. My emendation puts celsitudinis in apposition to Dei, and simply has him giving two names to God.
5. Superficially a good knock-down argument against the kind of persons he was dealing with, who would have had in common with him a Neoplatonist, dualist intellectual background. But the language, treating "spirit'' as meaning quite simply non-material being, and thus including "soul" under spirit as well as God, is totally unbiblical and foreign, for example, to Paul, for whom "soul" is more readily identified with "flesh," and together with "flesh" is always starkly contrasted with "spirit."
And in any case, the inference that God becoming man, the incarnation of the Word, was some¬ thing less wonderful than you or me becoming you or me, seems hardly acceptable to a Christian understanding of things.
6. See Gal 6:14. 7. Either when we were confirmed, being "sealed" with chrism in the sign of the cross; or when as catechumens enrolling for baptism at the beginning of Lent, we were signed with the sign of the cross; or finally when we crossed ourselves on entering the church.
8. In his first sentence he called Christ's passion two things: a guarantee of glory and a lesson in patience. He has so far, he thinks, been confining himself to the first, and so has little time left for the second. By the first he has, it seems, really meant "an occasion for boasting," something to be proud of, rather than a guarantee of future glory in the kingdom.
9. That is, pride comes before a fall.
10. See Rom 12:16.
SERMON 219
AT THE EASTER VIGIL
Date: uncertain1
The mother of all holy vigils
When the blessed apostle Paul is urging us to imitate him, among the many marks of his virtue he also mentions in vigils very often (2 Cor 11:27).2 How much more eagerly, then, ought we to keep awake on this vigil which is, as it were, the mother of all holy vigils, and on which the whole world is awake and watchful? Not the world of which it is written, If anybody loves the world, love of the Father is not in him; since all that is in the world is the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and worldly ambition, which does not come from the Father (1 Jn 2:15-16). That sort of world, of course, that is, the children of iniquity, is ruled by the devil and his angels, against whom the same apostle tells us we have to struggle, where he says, There is no struggle for us against flesh and blood, but against the principalities and powers, and the rulers of the world of this darkness (Eph 6:12); which is what we too were, once upon a time, but now light in the Lord (Eph 5:8).
So it is not that world that keeps awake and watching during this solemnity, but the one of which it says, God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, not putting their sins down to their account (2 Cor 5:19). Although as a matter of fact, this vigil is so famous and celebrated throughout the whole world, that it obliges to stay awake in the body even those who in the heart, I don't say are asleep, but are buried in infernal godlessness. They too keep watch this night, about which what was promised so long before has visibly come true: And the night will be lit up like the day (Ps 139:12).3 This happens in the hearts of the godly, who have been told, You were once darkness, but now light in the Lord (Eph 5:8). It also happens in the rivals of the sheep; so, both in those who can see in the Lord, and those who are envious of the Lord.4
So on this night both the hostile world and the world that has been reconciled is keeping vigil. This one keeps awake to praise the doctor by whom it has been delivered; that one keeps awake to blaspheme the judge by whom it has been condemned. This one keeps watch, godly minds aglow with fervor; that one keeps watch, gnashing its teeth and green with envy. In a word, it is charity that