Messingham, Florilegium (1624) — translated from the Latin. Walafrid Strabo mentions this sermon in book 1, chapter 14 of the Life of St Gall; it is also preserved in Canisius, Lectiones Antiquae, vol. 5.

¹ The eternal and unsearchable God subsists from everlasting — with the wisdom coeternal with Himself, that is, His everlasting Son, and with the charity coeternal both with Himself and with His Son, that is, the Holy Spirit — without any beginning, without changeableness of time, without need of places or of ministries, ever in Himself in blessed and immortal majesty. Yet He is not to be thought of as dwelling in solitude without the fitting service of His servants, since the Apostle declares most manifestly that He “chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world” — by eternal predestination, that is, not by temporal creation, but by gracious calling and unmerited grace. But He who, by His goodness and by the greatest [power], ever beholds present before Him all future things and the fellowship of His holy angels and of men, as though setting them in order — at a certain time deigned, by His almighty workmanship, to create out of nothing the creature foreseen and predestined by His unchanging counsel to praise Him, and to live in Him and from Him and through Him in Godhead; and for the blessed spirits He made a dwelling above the heavens, while the earth He prepared for the men who were to come. The reason for whose creation it behoves us to know, most Christian brethren, lest, deeming yourselves vile and abject, you nullify your dignity by the conversation of brute beasts.

² God, who is supremely good, full of benevolence, free from envy, knowing no malice, purposed to create rational angelic spirits after His own likeness, that they, knowing Him the Lord and author of their origin, filled with the richness of His love, might delight in being blessed in Him. But when certain of them, not yet having tasted of His sweetness, most rashly and foolishly persuaded themselves that they were their own beginning and head, their life and their delight — empty and void within, and weighed down by the burden of pride — they were thrust down by a sudden fall from the tranquil dwelling of the heavens into the stormy turbulence of this air, there to remain until the day of the general and everlasting judgement. But the unchanging will of the most gracious Creator, determining to make up the foreordained number of the most blessed host, put mankind in their place. These men, endowed with reason, instructed by precepts, restrained by threats, He left to their own free choice, that by imitating God they might scorn things evil and wicked, and care for things right and just. But the impious murderer Satan, who spared not even himself — grieving that so great an honour had been bestowed by God upon earth-born creatures — enviously persuaded them, ignorant of his schemes and deceit, to the same fall whereby he himself had perished in pride: namely, that they should not venerate the eternal Creator as God, but should consent with deadly delight to have temporal creatures, that is, themselves, as gods for themselves. And this greatest and most monstrous sin was followed by so many outrages and crimes and wickednesses that the divine justice decreed to destroy by the waters of the flood the world, which He had adorned with every beauty, together with the human race which He had set over it to rule it — and destroy it He would have done, had not His immeasurable goodness overcome our great malice.

³ Therefore He neither left such crimes unavenged, nor utterly consumed the well-formed creature. Out of all men, one righteous man was chosen, through whose providence, or rather through His own warning, a kind of vessel, an ark, was built, in which he with his household and the rest of creation, to rekindle the seed [of life], though amid the utmost perils, remained marvellously safe as it were upon the ruins of a perishing world. And when, after the circuit of nearly a year, the Creator, pitying the offspring named Noah — as the comforter of such great, although most just, vengeance — brought him out of the dungeon of that enclosure, He enriched him with his offspring and every seed-bearing creature with a new blessing. And now the sons of Adam, being born again, revived, and pride, long since condemned to the root, sought to build a tower of clay and pitch, from whose summit, against the will of the Almighty, they might invade the starry and immortal dwelling. But the most mighty wisdom scattered that conspiracy of envious and (as it seemed to them) clever machinery so easily, that He divided all tongues into the most diverse confusion, or rather into the most unlike dissimilarity, so that none could understand the speech of his own kinsman or brother. And therefore they were scattered through all regions and diverse places, and divided in lands and speech, and scattered in religion — or rather in madness. Some indeed worshipped the heavenly nature with divine cult and service, provided by God the author for the ministry of men; but others, making images of dead men, began — though justly mortal — to worship in madness the malign spirits attending them, as though they were guardians and protectors of the soul or body of the living. But the piety of the immortal God and of the true truth, not yet failing, did not leave the creation He had benignly formed altogether deprived of His mercy; but from the middle of the nations given over to idolatry He called from heaven Abraham, the father of all the faithful, to know Him, the true and living God.

⁴ Who, full of incomparable obedience, obeying the divine command, went out from his land and his kindred, not yet knowing where he should go, provided only that he fulfilled the commandment of God. For which thing he received an oracle of this kind: that he should take possession of the land of his staying; which was fulfilled in the Jews descending from his flesh by mortal generation; and that in his seed all nations should be blessed — which we rejoice to see fulfilled in ourselves through Christ, born of his seed according to the flesh through the Virgin. Of this faith, proved in his uncircumcision, He set upon the same father Abraham the sign of circumcision as a kind of seal; by which it behoved the people sprung from his loins to be marked until He should come who by His passion should redeem all believers from every sin and from the injury of circumcision. But when a not inconsiderable people sprung from him, by reason of famine, entered the land of Egypt from the land of Canaan which they inhabited — where God had brought one of his grandsons, by reason of the light of many peoples, through whose providence almost the whole world, endangered by scarcity of food, was to some extent preserved — and when the luxuriant people of that nation began to worship thousand-shaped monsters, and were also oppressed with most hard labours by the Egyptians: God, mindful of the faith and of the fathers whom He had approved, sent to them His servant Moses, who by many signs and insupportable plagues, scourging the Egyptians, might lead the people of God into the land long since promised to the patriarch Abraham, guided by heavenly leading. And when, going forth from that land, they had reached the shores of the Red Sea and the vast wilderness, the king of the Egyptians, stung by the loss of the servitude they had cast off, gathered an army with yoked chariots and shut them in as fishes in a gulf. But they lifting up their voice to the true God, the waters of the sea divided here and there, and afforded a dry road to the wayfarers. Which the worshippers of apes and of dog-shaped Anubis, beholding, thought that Neptune was now vainly to be appeased, seeing the waves thus parted. And so, all following the footsteps of the travellers, they entered the abyss of their own last end, and — the last of God’s people having crossed to the natural shore — they were overwhelmed by mountains of water, so that none remained to report the deed to those sitting at home.

⁵ But when the provisions which they had brought with them out of Egypt failed the Hebrews (a name given to the people of God because they had passed over from nation to nation and from one kingdom to another people), God gave them bread and flesh from heaven, and water — either He sweetened the bitter, or brought forth from the rock that which they had not; and so He led them round through the desert for forty years, until they should unlearn the idolatry from which they had been brought up, and which they were sure to find wherever they came — from which, as from all other evils, He warned them to beware from heaven, and diligently instructed them to know Him and to follow other good and just things; and at last, mindful of His promise, He brought them into the promised land in mercy. And as formerly He had bidden and caused them to cross the bed of the navigable Red Sea with dry feet, so [He did again]. And while those who had seen these wondrous things yet lived and survived in the flesh, the knowledge and worship of the true Godhead and of the divine truth continued unimpaired. But when they had been gathered to their fathers, their sons sprung from their flesh — not imitating their fathers’ faith — worshipping the images of the nations round about, fell headlong into the precipice of idolatry. For which they used to be given into the hands of their enemies, near or far off. And when sometimes, grievously oppressed, they turned again to supplicate the God of their fathers, He raised up for them one of their brethren, who should be both a Saviour against their enemies and a fitting judge to keep them in mutual concord. And for a long time they played the wanton — that is, whenever prosperity smiled upon them, they flowed away to the worship of idols; but when the storm of persecutions threatened, they strove with all their might to return to the true God, the safest haven.

⁶ At length He gave them a king, David by name, who both defended them from the incursions of hostile nations, and by the fear of God, wherewith he himself was most full, and according to his name, “strong of hand”, restrained them with continual reins. After his death, when on account of the sin of his sons no more than two tribes of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel (a name imposed on their father and on them because God deigned to be seen by him in vision) — namely Benjamin and Judah, from which they are also called Jews — adhered to the posterity of David with a few priests and Levites (so named because all who were to be given over to the divine ministry were named Levites after Levi their father): the remaining ten, or rather eleven, tribes through their one usurper king named Jeroboam, and his most wicked progeny given over to the filth of idolatry, were blinded with monstrous madness against the eternal God. Who also delivered them into the hands of their enemies, to whom, being subject, they were compelled to worship idols against their will. But even the most faithful offspring of David was not slow to stray into the pitfall of infidelity — so that even the kings and priests, neglecting the worship of the one true God, began to adore the Saturns, the Junos, and the foulest Priapus, with madness, in Jerusalem itself, which He had chosen for His city and temple. For which thing God, justly forsaken by them with deservedly sufficient vengeance, left them in the power of the heathen, that what He had threatened them might be fulfilled: “As you have served strange gods in your land, so shall you serve strangers in a land not yours, who shall give you no rest.”

⁷ But even then, not forgetful of the faith of Abraham and of David, He kept some of them, for a remnant, in their own land, and preserved His temple in Jerusalem for a little while — until, their sins waxing more frequent, He suffered it also to be burned with its citizens and the city. But not even then did the divine clemency utterly forsake them; no, from the embers and ruins of the fallen city He preserved certain ones, to whom that prophecy most aptly applies: “You were as a brand plucked out of the burning, and not even so did you return to me, says the Lord.” Which we know was fulfilled in those whom He suffered to live in the middle [of the flames], who, adding sins to sins and laying one another waste, were at last — compelled, as it seemed to them, by the hand of the celestial power — driven to flee into Egypt, as though to preserve the covenant of the divine oracle, but in truth to be slain. But those who had been carried away by the king, who by the will of God had subdued their pride, into far captivity — there they turned with their whole heart to the God of their fathers, and were so refined by the fire of tribulation that not even material fire could part them from His love.

⁸ At length therefore the merciful and pitying Lord, pitying their grievous labours, so turned the hearts of the kings who had held them in captivity to indulgence and willing release, that they commanded much to be expended from the public revenues and treasuries to aid their return to their land and the rebuilding of the temple of God anew. But — alas! — when they could not hinder the law of God or its ceremonies, being hindered by their mixed hostile [neighbours], they sedulously took care to abolish what none could even have conceived: for by a sudden chance the most wicked king of the Greeks, as it were the precursor and herald of the most malignant Antichrist, so oppressed them that they believed they could not be relieved but by the hand of the celestial sovereignty. Who also delivered them with so great a miracle from the assaults of most monstrous, most diverse and innumerable adversaries that very few of the Jews, most of them being slain, inspired no small terror into the rest who remained, wherever they were. But when those men, taught by such scourges — who had learned to fear the Lord of their fathers — were taken off by various fates and left the world orphaned by their death on account of the sins of those remaining in the world: first vile persons were set over the people of God as their successors; then they were also mingled with aliens, or rather subjected to the yoke of their servitude; and it was necessary that the divine wisdom itself, through whom all things were made, should deign to provide by herself for the restoration of the human race.

⁹ But because in His incomprehensible majesty that divine nature could not be comprehended by weak and mortal men, He provided by a wonderful dispensation of pity that the light of His power — conforming itself to our weakness while yet remaining in immortality — should be born of the womb of the incorrupt Virgin, and should grow after our wonted manner to youthful years in age and stature, but in grace and singular wisdom. Nor, though His Godhead was veiled in His flesh, could it be wholly hid from human minds — from those at least who were willing to receive Him when known. For at the hour of His birth the angel of the Lord appeared with great glory to the shepherds of His nation, and announced His birth, which was to profit all nations; and a multitude of the heavenly host sang in answer to the angel’s words. But that same hour also, in the remote parts of the East, a new star appearing unexpectedly to wise men skilled in the stars drew them to the birth of the new King. And on the fortieth day of His nativity, when the Virgin Mother brought Him to the temple of God to be presented after the wonted custom of her nation, the Saviour of the world was recognised there by holy men, and by them announced to the other faithful.

¹⁰ In the twelfth year of His age also, when He remained in the same temple unknown to His parents — who supposed He had departed the city among their kinsfolk and acquaintance, and when He was not found returned to the temple, and found Him after three days in the middle of the doctors acting most wisely — and His mother asked why He had left her grieving, He answered: “I must be about my Father’s business” — surely intimating that the temple belonged no less to Him than to God the Father. And in the thirtieth year after He began to converse among men, He hastened to the baptism of His servant, that He might give an example to His followers — that none should disdain to be baptised by an inferior person, since the Lord Himself and their God was baptised by the hands of His servant. But because He had willed to be washed in water not from any need of His own but to spread humility: see, God the Father bore witness with a voice brought from heaven, saying: “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear Him.” And the Holy Spirit, by whose work He was conceived, descended upon Him in the form of a dove, to declare the innocence of His holiness.

¹¹ Christ therefore, thus glorified and strengthened as man, went into the desert to accomplish a fast of forty days, to do battle with the devil. Which being completed, the most cunning adversary, perceiving — as is believed — from certain gestures or bearing of the human body that He hungered, and therefore reckoning Him to be only a man, but fearing Him above men on account of His innocent life, assailed Him with this craft: if He could have consoled His hunger with bread made of a stone, as he suggested, the divine power in Him being detected, he would have desisted from his injuries and persecutions. If in so great need He could not even refresh Himself, then, a mere man being proved, he would deem Him no less subject to death than himself and other mortals. But the wondrous Master of holiness so eluded his schemes that neither by changing the stones into bread did He suffer the marks of divinity in Him to be detected, nor, confessing impossibility, was He excited to our infirmities — saying that the life of the rational soul consists not only in material food, but in every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.

¹² The devil therefore, defeated in this conflict more surely than before, thought he could explore the divinity of Christ through the display of vain glory, wherewith he knew the minds of mortals were most delighted. Taking Him up and setting Him upon the pinnacle of the highest temple, he persuaded Him from there to cast Himself down if He were the Son of God, and He would not be hurt. To whom the invincible warrior ever made such answer that He neither denied Himself to be the Son of God, nor taught that the devil’s persuasions were to be obeyed — saying that it was not of a sound mind for anyone to tempt his Lord and his God. Therefore the enemy, defeated also in this combat, through the avarice of greed wherein he rejoiced that he had surpassed himself — and not doubting that he could subject Christ to himself — showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them, promising that if He would adore him prostrate to receive them, He should go away gifted with such things. At which most monstrous blasphemy the Master of humility, shuddering, repelled the most wicked monster from Himself with troubled indignation, saying: “It is the part of a religious heart to adore the Lord your God, and to serve Him only.” The adversary, struck by His face, departed from Him until a time. And the angels, marvelling at the most victorious triumph of our King, worshipped Him with due service.

¹³ These things therefore being thus accomplished, Christ the Lord returned to men and, according to the Scripture, “wrought salvation in the middle of the earth”: restoring sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, speech to the dumb, cleansing to lepers, limbs to the maimed, reason to the possessed, vigour to the paralytic, gait to the lame, and bestowing every kind of healing on a thousand nameless maladies. No, He satisfied four thousand followers with seven loaves and very few fishes. And at another time He so filled five thousand men, with five loaves and two fishes — besides an uncounted number of women and children — that of the fragments which had grown in the hands and teeth of the banqueters from those few things, twelve baskets were filled in witness of so great a miracle. He walked also upon the sea with dry feet, raised the dead confessing from the tomb, and, called to a feast, turned waters into wine. And above all these things, the Father from heaven — the disciples hearing, and sometimes also infinite crowds standing by and listening — commended His Son, and promised that He both had glorified Him and would yet glorify Him.

¹⁴ But of His doctrine, who can worthily say anything? — seeing He set before His disciples such precepts as human possibility could scarcely or never fulfil unless strengthened by the help of God Himself; and yet from every state or condition He took care to intimate such easy and wholesome admonitions that no one at all — unless very ignorant and altogether unworthy of divine grace or protection — should be excluded from the kingdom of God. To the apostles themselves and their followers He so persuaded the embracing of virginity that they knew it to be not of human persuasion but a divine gift. He enjoined also the renunciation of all possessions and affections, that they should know they would receive in this world much more than they had left, and in the world to come possess eternal life, and on the day of the great judgement sit as judges with Him. And other faithful He taught to acquire by humility, gentleness, peace, mercy, justice and patience their own good and the kingdom of God — not refusing to endure even the persecutions of the wicked if necessity should come. And to all alike He gave the commandment that evil should not be rendered to brethren, nor curses of revilings be poured upon them, or — these occasions not being cut off — they should fall into murder. And that none should look upon his neighbour’s wife with an impure eye, lest he be defiled with adultery; and that none should presume to swear rashly, lest perhaps he forswear; and that none should obstinately resist his adversary, lest he incur peril not of soul only but of body.

¹⁵ Moreover to those desirous of the more perfect life and greedy of the kingdom of heaven He so enjoined poverty and contempt of earthly things, that they should not reckon these things to be lacking to themselves — and He so kindled other Christians abounding in them to their service, that whoever of them should minister to His poor in these things should not doubt that he bestowed it upon Christ Himself and God the Father. And the false worshippers of God, glorying in the nobility of their race, He called hypocrites and offspring of vipers. The priests also, who pretended piety in name and hid malice in their heart, He marked with the cedars, confuted the leaders of the blind, and with a most apt comparison likened them to whited sepulchres, which outwardly appear fair to men but within are full of all filth. And likewise the Pharisees, who seemed righteous to themselves and despising others refused to receive the repentance of sinners, He so confuted that He said He had come not to seek the just but sinners and the lost, and to save them. And that He was the true Son of God He declared not only by the attestation of signs and incomparable wisdom, but proved by prophetic letters and most ancient allegations. But the unbelieving Jews, who feared not to despise God in His saints, and could not be driven from the one purpose of their malice and the stubbornness of their wickedness, afflicted Him with injuries and curses, and moreover pursued Him with stones. When therefore He saw that they were incorrigible, withdrawing from them with His disciples, He proclaimed that the ruin of the wretches was now at hand, and that His own end and the end of the whole world would not be long after; and He prophesied that He should undergo a speedy gibbet for the salvation of the human race, and rise again the third day.

¹⁶ Meanwhile the impious people had long since corrupted one of His disciples with the disease of avarice, and by the promise of money had drawn him to betray his Master and Lord — he being full of the devil and now ready to deliver Him to His enemies. He watched, therefore, for an opportunity when, without the crowds that used to follow Him most frequently, He might so be seized, bound and dragged by His adversaries that He should have no means of escape or defence — as it seemed to them. After the prayer which He poured forth at great length to God the Father for our salvation, He went forth to meet His persecutors and asked whom they sought. And when they said they sought Jesus (which name of His was propitious) and He answered that He was He, again and again they went backward and fell to the ground. But He who had come to free us from eternal damnation by His passion at length yielded Himself to the power of the furious, hiding the power of His majesty for a time, that by His undeserved death He might absolve us from all our merited sins. Seized therefore and bound, the impious ministers led Him to the tribunal of Pilate the governor, [alleging] that He was subverting their nation, forbidding tribute to be given to Caesar, and calling Himself Christ a king — and therefore the judge himself, if he would be Caesar’s friend, ought not to let such a man live. Then he, compelled by necessity, gave Him to his soldiers to be mocked. Who, clothing Him in a robe of scorn as one who presumed to usurp the royal name, and crowning Him with a crown of thorns for a diadem, and filling His right hand with a reed for an imperial sceptre, casting spittle in His face and striking Him with most frequent blows and buffets and grievous scourgings, injured and saluted Him by the name of king; and moreover, demanding that He declare the names of them that struck Him, they most shamefully tormented Him as a vile slave — to say nothing of the Son of God — the greatest Prophet, the worker of so many signs, the wisest of men; and thus mocked, no chastised — and, that I may speak more truly, deadened — they presented Him again to their governor.

¹⁷ But the Jews, not yet sated with all these injuries, besought the governor that He should be crucified. And when he piously refused, saying that he found nothing worthy of death in Him: then the impious people, to be abhorred of all, damned themselves with such a curse that they imprecated His blood to come upon them and upon their children — adding that they had a law, and according to the law He ought to die because He made Himself the Son of God presumptuously; but He ought not even to say it in a simple word, unless they measured or confessed by the works which He did in His Father’s name that the worker of so many wonders deserved rightly to be called and believed the Son of God. The governor therefore, made fearful by these things, and most straitened by that which he feared as a most great and intolerable reproach — “If you let this man go, you are not Caesar’s friend” — decreed that their petition should be granted.

¹⁸ Then they laid the cross upon Him, that He might bear it even to the place; yet as though honouring and pitying Him whom they strove to slay with so unworthy a death, they compelled a certain stranger to bear the cross after Him. And when He came to the place which is called Calvary, because there men condemned to death used to be beheaded, crucifying Christ the Lord — that His most shameful death might be rendered the more infamous — they hung two thieves, one on His right and one on His left, and rejoiced to mock Him with these words: “He saved others; Himself He cannot save.” One of the thieves also, raving with like madness, said to Him: “If You be the Son of God, save Yourself and us.” But the other, whose mind God had deigned to illuminate to acknowledge the present truth, rebuked his fellow and besought the hanging Lord to deign to remember him in His kingdom. Whose believing mind and confessing mouth Christ approving, promised that he should be with Him that day in Paradise. While these things struck the Creator through the rational creature He had made, the irrational and senseless creatures, terrified at the nod of His majesty, threatened mortals with their own defection: for the sun was turned into darkness, and the earth was shaken, and the rocks were rent, and the monuments were opened, and the nature of things was troubled, which could not endure the injury done to God. And afterwards, when all that had to be done was fulfilled — that the Scripture might be accomplished, that He should be given vinegar to drink — He said “I thirst”; and when He had received the vinegar and commended His spirit into the hands of the Father, He said “It is finished”, and bowing His head yielded up the spirit. And honourably buried by His friends, He was guarded most carefully by soldiers — fearing, namely, lest, as He had foretold, He might rise again. But an angel coming from heaven made the soldiers who were guarding the sepulchre most vigilantly stupefied like dead men, and after a little, their spirit and courage returning, they were witnesses of His glorious resurrection. Meanwhile also, when certain pious women came with spices to visit His body — to keep it from corruption — the same angel addressed them graciously, [saying] whom they sought was risen. And because the Lord Jesus Christ had risen again, spoiling the empire of death — a thing certain to a just judgement — he warned them to see the place where the Lord had been laid. And when they entered, they saw two angels in white sitting, one at the head and one at the feet, where the Author of eternal life had once rested and now had risen again. And when they, fearful, began to go out wishing to flee, the most benign Lord Himself met them, and saluting them sent them as messengers of His death overcome to His disciples. And on the same day He appeared specially to Peter. Who also, joining Himself as a companion to two who walked and talked together, unfolded the Scriptures, that so it behoved Christ to suffer and to rise again from the dead, and to enter into His glory. And by them invited to [stay], He was recognised in the breaking of bread — He who before seemed unknown because of the blindness of their heart.

¹⁹ But in the evening of the same day He appeared to His apostles, and breathed upon them the joys of peace and commanded them, and said: “Receive you the Holy Spirit; whose sins you remit, they are remitted to them; and whose you retain, they are retained.” And to confirm the hearts of them that doubted, who thought they saw a spirit rather than a body, He showed them His hands and feet retaining the marks of His recent passion, that they might be fit witnesses of His indubitable resurrection. But they still not believing and marvelling for joy — that the truth of His flesh might be proved by the effect of eating — He asked if they had anything to eat. And when they offered Him part of a broiled fish and a honeycomb, eating before them He gave them the remains, and declared that these were the words which He had spoken before His passion: how it behoved the empire of death to be dissolved in Him, and repentance and remission of sins to be preached to all nations in the name of His resurrection — and promised also that they themselves should yet be strengthened by the most glorious mission of the Holy Spirit. Yet He would not have them, thus instructed and consoled with so great a promise, depart from Him in bodily absence at once, but for forty days He visited them with all manner of proofs. Now standing in their middle, the doors being shut; now, when they had laboured all night in vain in fishing, He standing on the shore had filled their net with a multitude of fishes; and in their taking He assigned to Peter, after the keys of the kingdom of heaven and the retainings and loosings of sins, the care of His sheep, and intimated that for the care of those same sheep he was to undergo the cross. Then on a certain mountain He confirmed them in the faith, and commanded them to go and teach all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things whatever He had commanded them; and said to them: “He that believes and is baptised shall be saved, but he that believes not shall be condemned.”

²⁰ And because the despisers of God — the unbelieving Jews and the nations given to idolatry — were to be nourished to the faith by signs, He gave His apostles power over all demons, to cure the sick, to give light to the blind, to cleanse lepers, to raise the dead themselves, and bade them proclaim that the kingdom of God was at hand. And because they were to preach this new doctrine to all nations and tongues, He gave them the knowledge of diverse languages. And to them and to the followers of their faith He promised and granted much greater things: so that speaking to men of many languages in one tongue they should be understood by all, and the sick should be healed by their shadow passing by, and evil spirits should be put to flight by their napkins or girdles. But when He had taught His disciples these things in another region, that is, in Galilee — either before His passion or after His resurrection — that in the neighbourhood of the place where He had shortly before undergone the ignominy of the cross He might ascend to heaven, and there disclose to the faithful the dispensation of His incarnation, passion, resurrection and ascension — He led them to Bethany, which is called the house of obedience, from which it befitted Him to ascend to the heavens; His apostle, the teacher of the Gentiles, expounding what this signified: “Jesus Christ became obedient to death, even the death of the cross; therefore God also has exalted Him.” And when those who had assembled asked Him whether the day of judgement and the manifestation of the kingdom of God were now at hand, He said it was not for them — nor for any mortals, nor even for the angels — to know the times and moments which the Father has put in His own power; rather He bade them await the coming of the Holy Spirit in the city of Jerusalem. Strengthened by which Spirit, those witnesses were to go first in the same city, then in all Judaea and Samaria, and last of all to the uttermost part of the earth. And having thus spoken, lifting up His hands He blessed them, and while all looked on — as it were on the wings of a dove — He poised His incorruptible body to heaven. For which thing two angels at once stood by — that is, the witnesses who [swore] that He had penetrated the heavens — and said that in the same form wherein He had been taken up from them He should come to judge the quick and the dead. Then, as they had been bidden by the ruler of heaven, they entered Jerusalem and waited in suspense for the coming of the Holy Spirit. Who came on the tenth day after these things, and instructed them in the perfection of knowledge, endowed them with variety of tongues, and strengthened them against the madness of sinners — with signs accompanying: namely, the sound of a mighty rushing wind and fiery tongues. Strengthened by whose authority, proving the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ by prophetic authority, they converted many thousands of the Jews to the faith on the same day — and again at other times some thousands. And once they persuaded a whole company of priests to obey the faith.

²¹ Meanwhile, while all the aforementioned things were done, the Lord suffered all nations to walk in their own ways and to be filled with the opinions of most diverse errors — so that some worshipped the sun and the moon and the stars, namely the ministries assigned to human uses, with divine honours; but others, seized with greater madness, worshipped not only gold and silver but images and stones, four-footed things, serpents and birds, and the very herbs of the earth, as God the Creator. At length therefore the loving Creator of all things — since it behoved us ourselves to repent of and be weary of our own inventions and most wicked deeds — sent to us His apostles, to teach us to turn from these vanities to the living and true God, and to wait for His Son from heaven, and to believe that in the receiving of the Holy Spirit, which we who are regenerate in Christ have received, we obtain the remission of sins.

²² We therefore, unworthily fulfilling the office of this embassy in our times, beseech you for Christ’s sake that, as once in baptism, so ever you renounce the devil and all his works and all his pomps, and that you know the one true God the Father ever reigning in heaven, and His eternal wisdom incarnate in time for us, and the Holy Spirit, the pledge of eternal salvation, granted to you in this pilgrimage; and that you so live as it befits the sons of God — avoiding the concupiscence of gluttony, the madness of drunkenness, the filthiness of fornication, the idolatry of avarice, the frenzy of wrath, the cloud of sadness, the rancour of hatred, the rust of envy, the vanity of pride, the subversion of arrogance; and let none of you bring theft or murder or reviling upon any Christian, or presume to bear false witness of whatever crime; but be you kind one to another, forgiving yourselves as God has forgiven you your sins. And redeeming your past sins by the remedies of penitence or by the bounty of alms, be careful with God’s help to provide against those to come — knowing also that the day of the general judgement is now drawing near, and that the uncertain hour of each man’s end hangs over him. And indeed the last day of the great judgement is to be dreaded by all mortals, as one in which nothing uncorrected shall remain unavenged with everlasting punishment.

²³ But no less is the daily judgement of God to be feared by all wise men, whereby some are left in the world for a time to be proved as by a steward, while others, justly condemned for these things, are forgotten for ever. Some also, lying in their sins, He raises with the hand of His mercy; others, presuming on His justice, He suffers to fall by [the temptation] of passion; but others He keeps, corrected by whatever scourge, even to life, from every stain of wickedness. Therefore under these judgements of God every man in this life must fear, that in the judgement to come he may be absolved from all fear of sin and death. May almighty God, who wills that all men should be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth, [grant this]. Amen.