The Forgiveness of Enemies

I. Thanks be to Pope St. Gregory, who most acutely observed that Christ called the fishermen to the apostolate while they stood upon the seashore, not gathering in their nets, but only casting them: “casting their nets”; to signify to us that it is not to be the obligation of the Gospel preacher to win souls and to convert them, but only to use those pains which serve to so great an end. He must spread over his hearers the nets of the divine word, without leaving off for weariness of side, though in the long run it come upon him, or for sweat of brow; and for the rest, if sinners—like the craftier fish—shun the snares, or slip out of the meshes, so be it with them: yet not for that should the unhappy preacher ever grievously trouble himself, but remember that each, in the end, shall bear away the reward answering to his labour, not to his fruit:¹ “Every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labour,” as the Apostle says—and not, according to his own fruit. And certainly, were it not so, my hearers, I do not think I would have consented on any terms to appear this morning in this pulpit; rather it seems to me that I too, like a new Jonas, would in despair have set myself to flee² from the face of the Lord—with this difference, however, that if he fled because he feared the people would be converted, I would flee because I fear they would remain hardened. And why doubt it? Christ enjoins me, in today’s Gospel, to command you in His name that you give peace to your enemy, that you remit to him every offence, that you forgive him every outrage: “Love your enemies”: and would you have me hope so easily that you will do it? I may well, perhaps, spend my breath in shouting, and melt away in sweat. But then—what good? We have to deal with a passion so fierce that it prizes no reasons, will hear no counsels, yields to no prayers, and, like an enraged asp, scorns to listen, that it may not have to leave off biting. So what doubt is there that I shall never be able to come off with honour from the undertaking? On the other hand, I cannot bring myself to believe that persons otherwise of such sagacity and such wisdom as yours should let themselves be so carried away by a burst of fury as to make no account at all of one who speaks to them for no other interest than their own good. For what do you suppose? that I come this morning into this pulpit to plead the cause of your enemies? God forbid. I do not care for them, I do not know them; nor have I received from you, to this day, treatment so ill that I should play the protector or the advocate of those who have outraged you. Wretches that they are! They deserve nothing but a public noose to strangle them, since they dared to do insult to persons so illustrious for titles or for talents as I will readily grant you to be. And so, if one had to look to what they deserve, I myself—I myself—would wish to be the first to stir up your hatred against them, and would wish to call down upon them, were it lawful, far more evil than you yourselves would perhaps know how to bring upon them. But it is your good that presses me so, my lords; and therefore I grow warm, therefore I plead—because I see plainly that you, to vent a burst of inconsiderate passion, come to draw down upon yourselves a heap of unimaginable disasters. Do me, I pray you, no other honour than this: to hear patiently whether I speak the truth; and then resolve as it shall please you.

II. I know very well, my hearers, that passion so darkens the understanding that, as in a deep night, it lets it discern nothing of good from evil: “My eye is troubled with wrath,”³ said David; “My eye is dimmed with indignation,”⁴ said Job; and the Apostle meant to allude to this yet more vividly when he said,⁵ “Let not the sun go down upon your anger.” He meant—if we believe St. Thomas—he meant, I say, that the sun of reason should never set upon our resentments:⁶ “Let not the sun go down; that is, let not the dictate of reason be darkened.” For the rest, if but some ray of that fair Sun yet shone in you, you would see at once that greater is the evil you cause to yourselves by revenge than the good you would bring to your rival by pardon. He, though he have pardon from you, be sure he will not so soon have it from his own remorse and his own rancour, which are the household Furies of every wicked man; and, do what he will, whether in this present life or in the life to come, he will pay penalties far greater than any he could receive from you. Whereas you, to be avenged, into what miseries do you not run? Certain it is that anger is the most headlong of all the passions:⁷ “Anger is a brief madness.” He who acts carried away by it never acts with prudence, but with rashness. He fancies every difficulty easy, every danger safe, every outcome favourable; and considers not how many times it has fallen out that he is beaten who trusted to remain the victor. Hence Aristotle likened anger to a dog. Have you observed the dog when he hears a knock at the door of the house? At once he barks, and flares up, and runs to the threshold to fly at the life of whoever draws near. And he considers not first whether those he goes to meet be few or many, strong or weak, unarmed or well-armed: and so many a time he is forced to turn back with his neck bowed, and often too with his head broken. Which would not befall him, had he but a little patience to see first who it is, and then, if he found him his match, defy him with his barking and set upon him with his teeth. Just so, if we look well, does the angry man. Like an imprudent dog, he flings himself at once to attack whoever it be; nor does he first examine well, as he ought, what the contest is to which he goes to expose himself, and how great his own forces are, and how great another’s; so that often, while he goes to give offence, he is left the offended; and, instead of avenging old outrages, comes to carry off new ones. Who then assures you that the same lot may not befall you also? For even should you go so far as to drive your enemy clean out of the world, are there not others left to take his part? Rarely does a revenge come off wholly happy. You will have quenched your adversary; but you will have provoked his family, provoked his supporters; and for one who falls dead, it may be that a hundred rise up alive. How many are there, then, who repent of having avenged themselves? how many, too, who grieve at having conquered? “O how often has one rued his own defence!”⁸—so I find it noted by Tertullian. They thought, by conquering, to make themselves safe, and then perceive they have done no more than lop a head off the hydra: so much do the dangers grow greater every day. Hence, oh what a troubled life one must lead, in being unwilling to have peace with a single man! One must lose one’s friends, by showing oneself incensed at all those persons who belong to him. One must lose one’s recreations, by keeping far from all those gatherings where he frequents. One must lose one’s liberty, since one cannot even go in safety where one would, but must ever send ahead to spy out who is there, who was there, who is likely to come. Every new face gives suspicion, and every weapon near at hand brings fear. If one eats, one must suspect a treacherous drug in the food; if one walks, one must fear ambush in the streets; if one sleeps, one must dread betrayal in the bed: one must spend the surest part of one’s income in maintaining servants to defend, in bribing informers to report, in keeping cut-throats to attack—and in ever feeding certain mouths which you call mouths of fire, and which for that very reason are never seen satisfied: “They never say: It is enough.” And are not enmities seen, every day, to sink houses to the bottom for this cause—splendid patrimonies squandered, numerous families extinguished, fairest kindreds laid waste? How can it be, then, that you take pleasure in a condition of life so miserable as this, in which the evil you suffer is so certain, and the good that is to come of it so uncertain? Speak, then, speak; for I already imagine that you see well enough it is no intention of mine to plead the cause of your rivals, but rather of your nearest, rather of your dearest—rather, in the end, of your very selves.

III. You cannot, then, answer me except one of two things. Either that, to be avenged, you are content to lose all you have. But behold, the sun of reason in you is quenched. Forgive me if I tell you so: evening has come. “It is set, it is set.” Oh, what simplicity! oh, what folly! This is to fall into the most solemn madness of that Tribune of the People, called Drusus, who—as Pliny relates⁹—not knowing by what other means either to bring discredit or to do harm to a grave adversary of his, one Quintus Caepio, see to what he brought himself: he drank the blood of a fetid goat, a blood no less pestilent than loathsome, and so poisoned himself with his own hand, in the hope that his death might afterwards be laid to the charge of that famous ill-wisher of his. And is this not to proceed like a man in despair—says Chrysostom—like a frenzied man, like a fool?¹⁰ “What, I ask, is more foolish than to punish thyself, while thou believest thou art taking vengeance upon another?” Or else, if you do not tell me you are content to lose all you have, you may tell me that you have nothing to lose; that you are wholly free; that you are unbound; that you are alone; that you have no interests to care for, no family to provide for; and that, when once your adversary is dead, or mortified, there is not even anyone left in the world for you to fear. But if you speak thus, then stop; for in you it is no evening, as I had thought—it is already dreadful night:¹¹ “Will you not then fear me, saith the Lord?” If there is no one else left in the world for you to fear, there is left you God. Will you fear Him? Oh, if you understood how atrocious is the injury you do Him in avenging yourself, privately, upon an offender of yours, however unjust! Oh, if you understood it! believe me, you would not so easily give the long rein to your fury.

IV. And here imagine there were a prince at once powerful and merciful, who, to show his affection toward some subject of his, should say to him: Friend, I wish to establish a pact with you; so hear me. I mean to promulgate throughout all my State a public edict, that whosoever shall ever dare to outrage your person shall straightway be guilty of violated Majesty, no otherwise than if he had outraged, not you, but me. I will reckon as mine all the wrongs, mine all the affronts, mine all the villainies that shall be done you. But I ask of you, in return, one condition; and it is this: that you cede to me the vengeance of such offences. As mine I will declare myself to receive them, but as mine I will also avenge them. Tell me: if there were a prince who spoke in such fashion to a vassal of his, base and neglected, would not that man esteem himself exalted to a great honour? And if he balked at such a condition, as though it were burdensome, would he not be branded a fool—nay, reproached as a churl? And do you believe that such a prince, however benign he were, could still look with good countenance upon that audacious servant? Would he still concern himself with his comforts? Would he still care for his person? Rather I think he would cast him from himself; and, instead of willing to protect him any longer against every other, would be the first to take to persecuting him. Now imagine that this is precisely our own case. God has protested most clearly that He will reckon as done to Himself whatever wrongs are done to us. This is most certain: “The most benign and most merciful Lord makes common to Himself, with His servants, at once their honour and their affront,” so said Salvian,¹² “lest anyone who injures a servant of God should judge that only a man is injured by him.” And therefore no one offends or displeases us but he offends and displeases Him also; since there is no sin with respect to our neighbour that is not equally sin with respect to God:¹³ “He that despiseth you, despiseth me.” And if it be so, what love more heartfelt than this could He have shown us? But what? As He has protested that our offences shall be His, so on the other side He has declared that our vengeances are reserved to Him:¹⁴ “Revenge to me, and I will repay.” Now has He not therefore a most just cause to be angered, when we are not content with this law? Has He perhaps, by this law, burdened us? has He prejudiced us? has He oppressed us? what harm has He done us? One must say that we think one of two things of Him: either that He has not an arm to sustain our part, or that He has not a heart to feel our offences. But who can fall into so stupid a frenzy? Question St. John Chrysostom, and you shall hear that God is so inexorable in resenting the injuries done to us, that He will more easily be brought not to avenge His own than not to avenge ours:¹⁵ “For it is often God’s manner to forgive the sins committed against Himself; but those against a neighbour, these He requires with the utmost severity.” The unfortunate Cain once committed two solemn wickednesses: the one directly against God, by slighting Him in the offering of the sacrifices; the other directly against his neighbour, by taking his life out of spite. Who would not have supposed, then, that God must have called Himself to account more implacably for the first affront, as more properly His own? That was the first crime committed in the world against Religion, and so it seemed that a chastisement most memorable was owing to it, to maintain the necessary reverence for the divine worship. And yet, says St. John Chrysostom, look how light a resentment God showed of it. He did no more than say to the guilty man a single “Thou hast sinned.” He did not punish him, as a judge: He only admonished him, as a friend. But when the wretch grew savage against Abel—oh, then indeed God could not contain His anger in His breast. He cursed the wicked man with His own mouth, drove him from His presence, condemned him to the wilds, pursued him with terrors, and never for his whole life more gave any peace to that heart, agitated by as many Furies as it lodged thoughts by day or dreams by night. How then would you suspect that God does not take your offences to heart, seeing that He chose to make so much more account of the first fault worked to a neighbour’s hurt than of the first sacrilege committed in scorn of Divinity itself? But, on the other hand, if He takes them so to heart, how then do you not commit your every cause into His hands; and, being yourselves basest vassals, would arrogate to yourselves the authority of the sovereign master? Is this not to rebel against His tribunal? to repudiate His patronage? “And what honour shall we render to God, if we arrogate to ourselves the right of our own defence?”¹⁶—I will say to you with Tertullian. If you make yourselves, privately, the judges of the offences you receive; if you draw up the process, if you give the sentence, if you also execute the justice of it with your own hand—what else remains to God but to sit an idle spectator of your dissensions, instead of being the judge of them from whom is no appeal? It shall not come to pass, if this be so, that from now on we weary ourselves daily in repeating with the Psalmist:¹⁷ “The Lord is the God of revenge; the God of revenge.” No; for such you will not acknowledge Him, while you do not let Him act with liberty: The God of revenge acts freely. He wills not that you snatch the dart from His hand, to hurl it yourselves as best pleases you. Oh, to say the truth, how fitting it is that He should resent so detestable an affront—to usurp the Lord’s jurisdiction! And who does not know that this, in the end, is the point of which every prince is ever most jealous? And so here is what you gain by willing to be your own avengers: that whereas, if you would not avenge yourselves, God would take your part and would work vengeance against the enemy—now He will take the enemy’s part, and work vengeance against you. Choose, then, what you will. Will you have God on your side against your enemy, or will you have Him on your enemy’s side against you? Bethink you a little. Out of this there is no escape. You must of necessity choose the one or the other. Will you then be so ill-advised as to fear having a man for adversary, and therefore set about to strike him down—and not fear having a God for adversary, and therefore not beware of provoking Him? “Who art thou”—hear, for it is God Himself who speaks by Isaias¹⁸—“who art thou, that thou shouldst be afraid of a mortal man, and hast forgotten the Lord thy maker?”

V. I hear already the excuse you would bring me. You say that, if you do not do yourselves justice with your own hand, your reputation goes down with it. That you have been the offended, and that therefore you must also be the offenders. Otherwise you will be reckoned of forces too inferior to your adversary’s, since you remit your vengeance to a hand so much higher. Is that it? A great objection—very great; I do not deny it. But first, my hearers, I much congratulate you, that this should be the first dishonoured action you have to do. As though a gentleman came ever to lose anything of honour in frequenting, though married, the foulest brothels; in maintaining upon the stage the most infamous characters; in withholding for years and years from a poor hireling his due wages; in using in his dealings so many double-dealings both of deeds and of words; in flattering, for interest, persons inferior to himself; in slandering, out of envy, so many innocent men; in hindering, out of malignity, so much good. And is it possible that you—you, I say, who perhaps do not scruple to do so many dishonoured actions to the hurt of your own soul—should then fear to do one for its great profit? And yet, on what ground do you infer so great a loss of your reputation—as though it earned nothing at all in the way of credit with a Solomon, who affirmed that this is rather a matter of honour?¹⁹ “It is an honour for a man to separate himself from quarrels.” Because the laws of the World cry out so? But if we find that persons even nobler than we have practised this same law of pardon, without their renown being thereby stained, even in the face of the World itself, shall we disdain to practise it too? What? Will you then call infamous the Basils, infamous the Nazianzens, infamous the Athanasiuses, infamous the Chrysostoms, because they left us such memorable examples of pardon? A Gerard, Archbishop of Csanád, was so meek that, while some of the people flung stones at him, he returned them blessings: is he for this infamous? An Ambrose, Archbishop of Milan, was so merciful that he long supplied food to a traitor who had rabidly plotted against his life: is he for this infamous? An Acacius, bishop of Amida, was so clement that, to sustain certain pagan mockers of his, he went so far as to melt down the sacred chalices: must he for this be called infamous too? If these you call infamous, then no less infamous will be a Prince, Carloman, who, struck with a sudden blow on the cheek, instead of resenting it with haughtiness, answered with submission: infamous will be a Leo, infamous a Zachary, infamous an Alexander—all three sovereign Pontiffs, of whom one saved the life of his persecutors, another bestowed on them riches, another shared with them dignities. What say you? Will you call all these men infamous, because they clung not to the wicked laws of the World, but obeyed the most holy teachings of Christ? I wish you yourselves to judge. Feign these very personages not to have pardoned their enemies, but to have exterminated them, to have quenched them, to have even butchered them with their own hand: would they for this be held in greater esteem? Say—if you had to give the sentence—in which act would you declare them the more glorious: when they showed you their hands foul with blood, as even the barbarians of Brazil know how to do, or when they lay bare to you a heart pure of hatreds? But that you may not escape me by saying that these were all Ecclesiastics by profession, and that therefore in their persons those regards of honour did not press which press in yours—as though all Ecclesiastics too were not men like the rest, and so among them, humanly, one loves not, one prizes not, the standing above others—set before you a Wenceslaus, secular Duke of Bohemia. He was²⁰ pursued to the death by the perfidious Boleslaus, his brother by blood, but not by religion nor by conduct; and although he could many a time have taken, as a Prince, the merited chastisement, nevertheless he had rather sought to win him over with graciousness and with courtesies than to master him with prisons and with tortures. But all in vain; for while one night he was returning alone, as was his wont, from the church, in the habit not of a majestic Prince but of a penitent hermit, behold Boleslaus, issuing from ambush, sets upon him with naked steel. Wenceslaus deftly avoided that first blow; then, being as well furnished with courage as he was unprovided with arms, he closes suddenly upon the enemy, throws him to the ground, falls upon him, and with unspeakable valour comes even to wrest the sword from his hand. Now then: here is the guilty one at the feet of the innocent. What must Wenceslaus do with that steel in hand? Come, counsel him. If he would not be left dishonoured, must he plunge it into his breast, or keep it unstained? I will tell you frankly what he did. Rise to your feet, he said then to his brother, now become his betrayer; and, for all you have offended me, fear nothing from me. Only, for your own good, remember that it is far better to die like Abel than to live like Cain. But if live like Cain you will, then vent yourself, unhappy man, sate yourself, make yourself drunk with that blood you so crave; for I, notwithstanding, give you back the sword, that I may not deprive you of so deadly a delight. He spoke, and, having thrown the steel at his feet, with slow and majestic step he departed, leaving him—I know not whether more stupefied for confusion, or frozen for fright. But come, let us feign that Wenceslaus had not done thus. Let us feign that, while he had the enemy beneath him, he had with that same rapier opened his breast, or torn his throat: or, if not so much, let us feign at least that he had straightway dispatched a body of soldiery to make him prisoner in some deep dungeon of a tower; would he for this be more glorious than he is, for having given him back the sword free? I know that so great a piety cost him his life; for although by that act the barbarous brother showed himself to have been pricked to the heart, and appeased, yet it was not long before, agitated anew by inward Furies, he brought the horrible treason to effect. And for all this, must Wenceslaus be called infamous, for having chosen rather to pardon with peril so evident, than to make himself safe with a vengeance even just? What say you? what do you answer? I do not think you will have a brow so shameless as to decide in favour of vengeance against pardon. But should you still persist in sentencing that at least, according to the World, all these great men named must be called infamous—what then shall be an honour so great that to an infamy so fair it can be equalled? Who will disdain to be infamous too, in the company of personages so noble? Be glorious who will with the Adonibezechs, with the Abimelechs, with the Roboams, celebrated as prodigies of pitilessness; I care not for it: I am content to be infamous with those whom I have cited for examples of meekness—infamous, infamous. In fine, I know how it goes:²¹ “That which is high to men, is an abomination before God.” And what saying is this, my hearers, that I have here let slip from my mouth? Is it of some modern Doctor? is it of some ancient Doctor? It is a saying of Christ. Whoever believes me not, let him go—let him go to St. Luke, the sixteenth chapter, and there read it. And shall we still sit senseless, seeking further? Oh, look but a little at what so many people go to lose, who today set their glory in standing above their own enemies, in striking them down, in laying them low! This which men, in their foolish language, call glory—before God, what is it? It is an abomination. So says Christ: “That which is high to men, is an abomination before God: that which is high to men, is an abomination before God.” And you, for yourselves, would still have such a glory? Keep it: I make you a gift of it. I will be infamous, I will be infamous:²² “I will make myself meaner than I have done”—so that infamous I be with the followers of my Lord: “It is better”—oh, what divine words of Solomon in his Proverbs!²³—“It is better to be humbled with the meek, than to divide spoils with the proud.”

VI. And yet neither can I entirely grant you even this glory you hope for. For tell me: do you believe that if, by pardoning, you shall lose credit with many of the men known to you, you shall not with just as many lose credit still by avenging yourselves? You deceive yourselves much, if you believe it. Because in that case it will ever be said, by the wiser sort, that you were perhaps a most formidable politician, but that you were equally a rabid man, a bestial, a bloody one. It will be said that in your anger you had more of the woman than of the man, since, for all the good offices done you, and all the reasons set before you, you had not the heart to lay hold, for once, on that magnanimous resolution which the Davids used of old with the Sauls, the Octavians with the Cinnas, the Philips with the Nicanors, the Murenas with the Catos, the Caesars with the Marcelluses. It will be said that you did what every viper and every wasp knows how to do, which is to bite whoever provokes it; and that, if of this you glory, then among the animals the most timid deserve rather to be praised, because they are the most resentful. Now if, then, the good and the wise will speak ill of you equally if you take vengeance, and the wicked and the foolish if you give pardon—is it not rather better that ill be spoken of you by the insane mob than by prudent persons? I said, by the insane mob: for, to look straight at it, who are these whose reproaches you come to fear so much? the Constantines, the Justinians, the Theodosiuses, who among Christians have been the Lycurguses of the lay people? But these have uttered nothing to the discredit of pardon: well understanding, those illustrious personages, as most wise men, that what is honest cannot but be likewise honourable. Those whom you so fear are none other than certain dissolute men, half Infidels, half Idolaters, half atheists, proud accusers of that very Gospel which they are bound to profess. Hear how these men are qualified for us by the Apostle in his first to Timothy:²⁴ “He that consenteth not to the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to that doctrine which is according to godliness, is proud, knowing nothing.” Oh, what a censure! He says that each of these must be reckoned a proud man who knows nothing, an ambitious ignoramus, a haughty fool. And the judgment of these would you follow, as the rule of your living? among them close up your applause? from them carry off your reward?

VII. But should these reasons not even content you, and should you stand firm still in saying that, by pardoning, you lose more of honour than by avenging yourselves—be it as you say; what do you infer from it? That you will not obey the express injunction of Christ? You must bow your head humbly, and be content to sacrifice to God this affection of so insane an ambition, and of vanity. Your reputation will go with it. Let it go. This, then, must be for you the road by which to arrive at Paradise. It is rough, I grant you; it is difficult, it is disastrous. But what would you do about it? No one, that is known, ever arrived there treading flowers, treading fronds, but rather tearing himself among the thorns:²⁵ “My delicate ones have walked rough ways,” so our God told us by Baruch. Look but at those more delicate Saints, those more delicate women-Saints. Ah, by what ways did they find Heaven! They fright one to behold. If a Lidwina would arrive there, she had to be content to lie patiently for thirty-eight years upon a poor pallet, undone by palsy, shaken by convulsions, devoured by gangrenes, tormented by the stone, and become a most living image of death: “She walked rough ways.” If a Britius would arrive there, he had to bear patiently to be, like an infamous man, deposed from the Episcopal dignity upon a false calumny: “He walked rough ways.” If a Godeliva would arrive there, she had likewise to bear patiently to be, like a slave, tortured in horrible ways by her bestial husband: “She walked rough ways.” A Tiburtius, to arrive there, was constrained to pass over live coals; a Vincent, to lie upon red-hot plates; a Theodore, to suck down molten lead; and a Clement of Ancyra had for twenty-eight years to prove, one by one, all the most painful butcheries of scratches, of hooks, of racks, of pitch, of torches, of cleavers: “My delicate ones have walked rough ways.” And note that they suffered all this not by way of supererogation, but of obligation; so that, had they said to their persecutors, We will not buy so dear the purchase of Paradise—they would not now be rejoicing with the Angels, but raging with the damned. Does it then seem to you a great matter, that Heaven should cost you some light loss of worldly reputation? It will be believed that you forbear to avenge yourselves not from virtue, but from baseness of soul, from weakness of forces. Patience; let it be believed. Does not an eternal good deserve to be bought with any temporal evil whatever? “In your patience you shall possess your souls.”²⁶

VIII. But to have done, answer me a little, if you can, this other brief argument, which, like a sharp stylus, I mean to leave in your heart. You find yourselves brought to such a pass that of necessity one of two must be: either that you remit somewhat of your reputation, or that God remit somewhat of His. If you do not avenge yourselves, the worldly will despise you; if you avenge yourselves, you will despise God. Which of the two, then, seems to you the more fitting: that your honour go down, or that the divine honour go down? Yes, yes, I have understood you: let it go, you say, let the divine honour go, so that ours be saved. Let the divine honour go? You are right: there remains nothing more for me to say; I have done. My poor Redeemer! Why stay so long wearying Yourself with these people—enjoining, recommending, praying that for love of You they pardon their enemies? why so repeat it to them: “But I say to you, but I say to you”? Alas, have done with that I say of Yours, for I would not—forgive me if I speak to You with freedom—I would not that it had ever, in all eternity, come forth from Your mouth. You say it. But for this? for this will it be approved? for this will it be fulfilled? for this will it be done? You say it. But will the hatreds be for this appeased? You say it. But will the swords be for this laid down? You say it, Lord, You say it. But for this will men leave off running, as before, to vengeances and to insults, to the steel and to blood, to wounds and to deaths? Ah, my slighted Good! No more of that I from Your mouth, no more; for Your Christians make more account of one jot of their reputation than of any desire, or counsel, or commandment of Yours. And do You not perceive it? “Behold the word of the Lord is become unto them a reproach,” if I must use to You the words of Jeremias,²⁷ “and they will not receive it.” They will let You be left mocked, and will not scruple to rise up all against You, and to say that You require an action not only hard and impracticable, but dishonoured and infamous. And You—what will You answer to their arguments? Will You pretend, with a single I say, to stop their mouth? This was once the boast (I do not deny it) of the ancient Sages. With an He himself said it one answered sufficiently all the objections raised against a Pythagoras. But You are not of such account. Too much do our Cavaliers claim to know of points of honour, more than You. You, born in a stable; You, reared in a workshop; You, dead (must I say it to You?), You, dead for love of them upon a gibbet, like a thing of shame—what would You know of points of honour? Christians, my heart bursts—I know not whether with abomination or with zeal—and I can follow no further. Will you be of the number of those too who confound Christ in this manner? Will you make Him too be left so scorned, so disfigured, so shamed, that you may not lose a little of your own honour? “Let not the sun go down upon your anger,” yes, I say again: “Let not the sun go down upon your anger.” Ah, let not passion reduce you to darkness so thick. And therefore, while you set yourselves to act with the prudence that is due, I will rest.

SECOND PART

IX. There are some who will readily say that this Sermon is not made for them, because they profess no enmities. They say the truth. They do not profess them, because they keep them hidden. Oh, how many there are who hatch their enmities in the heart after the manner of mines, well shut up indeed, but that they may play their part in time! They wait for the convenience, they attend the juncture; for the rest, you cannot trust them: “Anger resteth in the bosom of a fool,”²⁸ said Ecclesiastes with the greatest acuteness. You will sometimes behold one of these, called by the World wise, but by God fools—I mean a wicked politician; and you will see him dissemble so well every old injury that you would swear that in him anger is dead. No, it is not dead; it rests: “resteth.” Stir it up a little, and you will soon see whether it knows how to wake from sleep. And if some do not seek another’s great harm, it is because they cannot: for the rest, they do not leave off wishing it him. They feed themselves on rage, they pasture themselves on rancour. When they hear but a word spoken of one who has offended them, they feel all at once their blood boil. Now think whether they will ever willingly speak to him: they will not see him, they will not hear him, they deny him every common office of civility; and if they do use him any, it is to put him off his guard, that so much the better they may afterwards come, underhand, to vent their every spite. And do these perhaps not all bring to God a most grievous displeasure? Oh, how greatly he would deceive himself who should believe that only certain execrable vengeances displease God greatly—slayings, assassinations, and other like atrocities. Hear what He said by the prophet Osee:²⁹ “Ephraim hath provoked me to wrath with his bitterness.” Have you observed? He says not in his furies, He says not in his outrages, no: in his bitterness. For those very bitternesses which you can never quite finish laying wholly aside from your soul—those, those displease God much. And then will you not still fear to approach, in such a state, the Most Holy Sacraments—to confess, to communicate—as though you too were so many doves without gall? In truth you are doves, but seduced ones. And so tell me a little: whatever be the resentments you have in your breast—great or small, secret or open—will you not this morning give them all alike to Christ, who by my means asks them of you?

X. I have already, in His name, laid before you my embassy: “Love your enemies.” What answer, then, would you have me carry back to Him? Will you obey Him? Will you humble yourselves? Will you pardon? Tell me, what will you be? Do you still hesitate? O God! And yet you are, in the end, under some obligation to Christ. It is to you He speaks, of you He asks it: “I say to you”; if He asked it of strangers, for whom He had wrought nothing, even so it were something. But He asks it of you. Of you, to whom He has given the body, the soul, riches, health, children, friends, learning, greatness, and all the good you possess in the world. Of you, for whose salvation He has swallowed down so many affronts; of you, for whose ransom He has laid out so much blood. And can He not obtain it, not even from you? An afflicted Abigail could obtain of a furious David that, for her sake, he would deign to pardon the villainies which, against all reason, he had received from the graceless Nabal. Ambrose could obtain of the Emperor Gratian that he pardon a public mocker of the Imperial person. A Genevieve could obtain of King Childeric that he pardon many audacious offenders against the royal Majesty. And Pelagius the Deacon, casting himself down upon the threshold of the Vatican at the feet of Totila—though a barbarian, though no believer—could obtain of him, by that volume of the sacrosanct Gospels which he held in hand, that he mercifully pardon the life of Rome, once his enemy, and then his slave. And shall Christ not be able to obtain of you that, for His sake, you pardon an adversary of yours—that you remit to him a wrong, an affront, a grievance, a little word? What would you have of Christ? Would you have Him cast Himself suppliant at your feet to beg you this favour? I am almost ready to say that He would do it; for if He did not scruple to prostrate Himself at the feet of a traitor, such as Judas was—to wash them, to dry them, to kiss them—He would not, I believe, be ashamed to be seen on His knees at your feet. But do you need so much to move you to content Him? Ah, Cavaliers, Cavaliers, I would not this time make you blush. For the rest, I know for certain that if just as much were asked of you by that woman whom you call your Lady, by her whose face, out of your senses, you idolize, whose wishes you divine, whose favour you covet—you would not let yourselves be so prayed to grant it. And then you let yourselves be so prayed by a God crucified for you? Oh, confusion! oh, ignominy! oh, shame! And there is yet more. For not only are you under much obligation to Him for the past, but you have also no ordinary need of Him for the time to come. For tell me: are you perhaps so good that you have never done Him any outrage, whether by thoughts, or by words, or by works? And how then can you hope from Him a merciful pardon? Hear His protestations, and shudder:³⁰ “For if you will forgive men their offences, your heavenly Father will forgive you also your offences.” You are then assured, by faith, that if you pardon your enemy, God will pardon you also: “But if you will not forgive men, neither will your Father forgive you your offences.” You are then assured, again by faith, that God will not pardon you, if you pardon not your enemy. What say you then? Do you perhaps not care that God should use mercy toward you for the offences done to Him? Do you love to perish? do you love to lose yourselves? will you resolutely damn yourselves? If this be so, there is no need to dispute of anything else. Let the earth yawn open, let Hell open, and, in despair, fling yourselves into those flames, to burn there eternally. But if you would have mercy of God: “With what face, with what face”—let me vent it with St. Augustine—“shall he be able to obtain, before the tribunal of Christ, the pardon of his own sins, who acquiesces not when God commands him to grant pardon to his enemies?” With what boldness will you presume to ask of Him pity? with what surety? with what face? And yet—oh, stupidity!—no one is wont to have greater repugnance in giving pardon to men than those very persons who have greater necessity of asking it of God. Great matter! Holy men, who have almost nothing for which to beg His mercy, when offended give thanks, when cursed bless, when outraged reward—for fear of not being treated by God with that severity with which they treated their neighbour. And we unhappy sinners, who every moment would plunge down into Hell, did not God hold us fast by the hair; we wicked ones, we sacrilegious, we ruffians, will not so much as hear peace spoken of; there is no satisfaction that contents us; there is no authority that moves us: let God command what He will, let Him pray, let Him threaten—blood, blood we will have, we will have death, we will see our adversary finished, or, if nothing else, we will at least do him all the more harm we can: those vengeances we cannot take of him with the balls of the harquebus, we will take with the balls of the voting-urn; those we cannot take with the dagger, we will take with the pen; those we cannot take with blows, we will take with words; at the last we will know nothing more of his affairs, we will not see him, we will not hear him, we will everywhere churlishly turn our backs on him. Ah, Christians, and shall we then be so stupid in a matter of such moment? Is it possible that, to satisfy an affection so bestial, we would put to hazard every good—make God our enemy, shut against ourselves Paradise, open against ourselves Hell? Ah, let us make a generous resolution at the feet of the Crucified. To these feet draw near, to these feet streaming with blood. What do you doubt? “If you have laid up with Him an injury, He is an avenger: if a loss, a restorer: if a pain, a physician: if death, a raiser to life again.” So does Tertullian hearten you.³¹ Do you not trust in God? Do you not trust that He can recompense you abundantly for this fair act of homage you shall do Him?

XI. Yes, yes, come; for this morning I mean to take up the pen, and, kneeling at these most holy feet, I mean to dip it in those venerable wounds, and so, with the blood of them, write the formula of pardon. I, Lord, by that office which I unworthily sustain in this place, in the name of this people declare to You, that we lay down at Your most sacred feet all the injuries we have ever received, or that we shall ever receive. Here we sacrifice our resentments, here we slay our hatreds, for victims to Your honour. And though it much stings us to deprive ourselves of that delight which vengeance could promise us, nevertheless, because You so command, we will obey You. We will offer peace, if it be not asked of us; if it be offered us, we will accept it. Do You pardon us with that pity with which we pardon our offenders; and when our sins shall accuse us at Your most dreadful tribunal, be You our defender, You our protector, You our father. Christians, is there any one who refuses to subscribe? is there any one? If there be, let him declare himself: for then I, become all fire, with this same blood will write for him the sentence of eternal condemnation. Perish the wretch, perish, who denies to Christ a request so just; and let this blood, which was to have saved him, condemn him. Let him find no pity; let him obtain no mercy. Let him fall, let his enemies prevail; let his wife remain a widow; let his children be orphans, and his grandchildren all go wandering from their lands, finding neither roof to shelter them nor garment to cover them. Let his house be exterminated, his goods dissipated, his name dispersed:³² “And let the memory of him perish from the earth: because he remembered not to shew mercy.” Let there return to God’s mind the memory of all his past wickednesses. And when the wretch shall appear before the divine tribunal, all laden with chains to be judged: “Let judgment without mercy be to him who hath not done mercy.”³³ Let him be judged without mercy, who did no mercy. I say it over again: Let him be judged without mercy, who did no mercy. Let all creatures cry vengeance against him: let the Angels cry vengeance, the Saints vengeance, vengeance the demons, all vengeance:³⁴ “When he is judged, may he go out condemned.” But God take from our midst a person so wicked. If there be one who would deny to Christ the grace He asks of us, let him depart, let him withdraw from this place. We who remain here, all humbled at the feet of the Crucified, will beg pardon of our enemies, pardon for ourselves, pardon for all sinners: pardon.

Synopsis

An editorial aid to the reader — not part of Segneri’s sermon.

Theme — “But I say to you: Love your enemies” (Matt. 5): the man who refuses pardon is forced, by reasons human and divine, to grant it.

• §I — the preacher casts the net; he would flee like Jonas, fearing not conversion but hardness.
• §II — revenge harms the avenger most: anger the headlong passion, Aristotle’s dog that barks before it looks.
• §III — the Drusus who poisoned himself to spite an enemy; if you fear no man, God is left to fear.
• §IV — the Prince who reserves vengeance to himself, applied to God; Cain punished harder for Abel than for the sacrilege — “Revenge to me.”
• §V — the honour-objection dismantled: the saints who forgave; Wenceslaus sparing Boleslaus; “That which is high to men is an abomination before God.”
• §VI — the wise, not only the fool, will despise the avenger too.
• §VII — the hard road the delicate saints walked; better lose reputation than Paradise.
• §VIII — the stylus in the heart: remit your honour, or God His — the address to the scorned Redeemer.
• §IX (Second Part) — the hidden enmities that only “rest” in the bosom.
• §X — the great intercessors (Abigail, Ambrose, Genevieve, Pelagius); and you need God’s own pardon.
• §XI — the closing formula of pardon, written in the wounds.