when mixed into dough, because water is added—which is more evident in the Latin word conspar-
SERMON 229A 271
Lord, is an act not of justice, but of pride. And that's why, when we say Up with the heart, because up with the heart can still be a matter of pride, you answer,
We have it lifted up to the Lord.
So it's a matter of condescension, not elation; and because it's a matter of condescension that we should have the heart lifted up to the Lord, does that mean we have done it? That we have been able to manage it all on our own? That we have lifted up the earth which we were right up to heaven? Perish the thought! He did it, he condescended, he put out his hand, he stretched out his grace, he caused what was down below to be up above. That's why when we said Up with the heart, and you replied We have it lifted up to the Lord; to stop you claiming the credit for having the heart lifted up, I added, Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.
These are brief mysteries, but great ones. I call them brief, but they are great in their meaning and effect.9 After all, you say these things very quickly, and without a book, and without a reading, and without long discussion. Remind yourselves what you are, and in whom you ought to persevere, so that you may attain to God's promises.
NOTES
1. Compared with Sermon 229, this one displays an extempore, off-the-cuff quality entirely characteristic of Augustine. Does this very authenticity here strengthen the doubt about authenticity there?
2. They had seen it, or most of them had, the previous night, after being baptized and confirmed at the Easter vigil. But perhaps there were several of the newly baptized who for reasons of poor health, or old age, or extreme youth, had not stayed on for the rest of the all-night vigil, but had gone home immediately after being baptized and confirmed.
3. Baptismal transformation, which makes us new creatures, a new creation in Christ (2 Cor 5:17), compared very boldly and significantly to eucharistic transubstantiation (a word Augustine didn't know), thus giving the eucharistic mystery an even more profound significance.
4. His word is sanctificatio.
5. The Latin reads Hocpanis corpus Christi\ but hocpanis is a fearful solecism, hoc being neuter and panis masculine; which one could ascribe to a copyist's carelessness, but not, I think, to Augustine's Latin. So one can either emend Hoc to Hie, which would give the sense, 'This loaf is the body of Christ"; or leave out panis, as I prefer to do. He is amplifying the meaning of the "one body" he has just mentioned. A copyist or reader can easily have been a little puzzled and have added panis as a comment in the margin, from where it could be brought by another copyist into the text.
6. These last two processes are analogous to baptism and confirmation; the flour is "purified" when mixed into dough, because water is added—which is more evident in the Latin word consparsura with its basic sense of sprinkling. His saying that by being baked the bread is made firm, firmatur, is the only allusion we have in this sermon to "confirmation." A little lower down he will give the baking the moral sense of "testing in the fire of tribulation." In Sermon 229 he (or his impersonator) interpreted it as being baked by the fire of the Holy Spirit.
7. In the Latin these two sentences occur in the reverse order. So the first interrupts, with no