Held in 1516 on the second holy day of Christmas. Christmas Day.
He who fears the Lord will do good, and he who clings to righteousness will grasp it, and it will meet him as an honorable mother. Sirach 15, 1. 2. (according to the Vulgate).
1. Some people fear God merely for God's sake; these make every effort to do good and carefully avoid evil. Others fear God both for the sake of God and for the sake of punishment; their good is not so good and perfect. Still others fear God merely for the sake of the punishment He has threatened the transgressors with; and these only do something good outwardly for the sake of appearances. The first are to be considered children; the others are in the middle and are neither children nor servants; the latter are only servants. The former are perfect; the latter are in progress; the latter are only beginners in the fear of God. The first kind of fear is called a childlike, holy, eternal fear, from Ps. 19:10; the other a beginning and mixed fear; but the third a servile and forced fear. The first fear chastises and makes the heart chaste; the other does this partly in the body and partly in the heart; but the third does it only in the body. The first leaves no sin, the second some sin, but the third all sin. For these latter love sin secretly in their heart and will; through the fear of the
But they are restrained from outwardly committing the same punishment. The middle ones have partly a secret love of sin, but partly also a hatred of it, because they stand between the two kinds in the middle; the former, however, love righteousness and hate all ungodly beings.
(2) As the fear of God is, so are the works that follow. Every fear is connected with a love. But the filial fear fears and loves at the same time only one and the same object, namely the unified God. In the second, beginning kind, one is divided, as it were, between fear and love; sometimes one fears God out of pure reverence and also loves him out of pure love because of himself; sometimes, however, one fears him only out of fear of punishment and loves him merely because of his proven good deeds. The third kind of fear, finally, is distributed among different objects in a very bad and unfortunate way; for it loves something other than God, and therefore it also fears God by showing him a fear that is without love, but to the creature a love that is without fear. Just as an adulteress fears her husband and loves the adulterer, and thus completely separates the fear and love that she owes both together to her husband, and which are both a chaste love.
The same is true for a spouse. Therefore it is said of Cain, Genesis 4:7, according to the old translation, that he did not sacrifice unjustly, but that he divided unjustly, because he should not have divided at all. Thus, the more one breaks away from the separation of love and fear and seeks to unite both together in God, the better the resulting works will be. For when fear and love are united with each other, they make a new man; but when they remain separated from each other, the old man also remains in his dominion. But those who begin to unite fear and love stand in the middle between the old and the new man, i.e. they are in the process of progress from bondage to freedom, from the letter to the spirit, from death to life, from Moses to Christ.
(3) Now we must also consider who is the one who is attached to righteousness. This "being attached" means in the true sense of the word a close and undivided adherence to one another, an uninterrupted succession; that is why in geography the earth is also called the continent, i.e., that which is attached to one another, because it is not separated by any sea, but one part is always attached to the other without interruption. And in the most literal sense, that is called contiguous or coherent whose parts are directly and exactly joined to one another, which the philosophers use to call partes communicantes in continuo (i.e., "the parts joined in uninterrupted connection"), namely, that which hangs together in a common third. In this way it is also said here: He who clings to righteousness, that is, unites himself with it in such a way and constantly clings to it that he becomes, as it were, one with it, until he is devoted to it with all his soul and embraces it warmly. But this cannot happen without love, because to cling to righteousness, i.e. to love righteousness, is as much as to detest unrighteousness. In this way both embrace and cling to each other, which is a sign of the love that prevails between them. The righteous
Therefore, this holiness can be grasped by no one but the one who is a devoted, constant and persistent lover of it. This holy perseverance arises from the love and fear of God, for then one seeks first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.
4 This one will now go to meet him as an honorable mother. And he will seize her, it is said, i.e. he will find her and obtain her and she will be his. He will not strive for her in vain if his love is persistent. Yes, she will even go to meet him herself and will love him just as persistently again and return his embraces, as it is said elsewhere: "I love those who love me", Proverbs 8:17. She will cling to him who clings to her; she will go to meet him who comes to her; she will offer herself to him who desires to seek her. These words are meant to indicate how easy it is to attain righteousness, if only the first difficulties to a holy life are overcome.
(5) All beginnings are difficult, but once the beginning is made, everything else becomes easier and comes as it were of its own accord. Just as, when something is to be set in motion, the impetus requires the most strength, but in the midst of the motion the thing runs by itself, so also he who begins to fight against his evil desires finds much work in the beginning, but in time the overcoming becomes easier and easier for him. That is why the prophet says: "Turn to me, and I will turn to you. Mal. 3, 7; as if he wanted to say: Seek me, and I will also go to meet you; just as that father hurried to meet his prodigal son when he set out to meet him, Luc. 15, 20.
(6) These sayings are therefore not to be understood of the first grace alone, but of both graces. The first grace causes man to make up his mind to turn to God, and of this it is said: "Turn to me. But the other grace makes man perfect in God, and of this it is said, "I will turn to you." I say this because such sayings, and some others like them
are equal to some, make much work in their minds; for they deal with the increasing grace, but they understand the same from the beginning grace.
7 She will receive him as an honorable mother like her son, it is said; and as an honorable one, because unrighteousness is also a mother of sons of unrighteousness, but a very shameful mother. But this mother is full of honor and glory; and he who has obtained her as a mother will not be disgraced for eternity.
She is that hen Christ who spreads her wings to cover as her children those who take refuge in him. This righteousness could not have been presented to us in a more charming way than under the image of maternal love, which there can be nothing sweeter than, and moreover, the love of such an honorable mother. With the mother all dear children seek refuge,. In the same way, all downcast and timid consciences seek refuge in the righteousness of Christ.
Several interpretations of the fear of God can be found in:
XII. Theil, Predigt am Tag St. Johannis, von der Furcht des HErrn.
XII. Theil, Predigt am St. Johannistage, Vermahnung zur Furcht GOttes.
c. From the love of God.
IX. Theil, sermon from the 1st epistle St. John 4, 16-21, about love.