The Loss of the Spiritual Garment

He gave what was due to the poor and has become a doer of this commandment. Therefore, I will command only the saints; you have only been taught by your self-control and by your rejection of not knowing your priest who always nourishes you through the mystical and holy food, having made little progress.

For if you call this progress, those driven mad also reach this point; for they, when they are seized by this passion, do not recognize those who begot them, they do not recognize a brother, they do not remember benefits, but even if someone wishes to help, he is perceived by them as an enemy and a foe, and when asked by their own people to state the cause of their grief, they say nothing coherent or relevant. It is therefore evident that those who depart from the church are also seized by the passion of madness, raging against everyone, withdrawing, calling the father who begot them an adulterer, and considering the mother a prostitute, not keeping the commandment of God which says, 'Let him who curses father or mother die a death' (Exodus 21:17).

But perhaps, making a pretext, he will say, 'I revile carnal parents.' You do not do even this well; for the law says this and our Lord Jesus Christ seals this; for being reproached by the Jews, when they called to him saying, 'Why do your disciples transgress the tradition of the elders and eat with unwashed hands?' (Matthew 15:3), the Lord says to this: 'Why do you also transgress the commandment of God and your own tradition?' (Matthew 15:4). For God said, 'Honor your father and your mother' (Exodus 20:12), and 'let him who curses father or mother die a death' (Exodus 21:17). Do you see how He sealed the commandment, or rather the law of nature through His own word? And many things could be said about the honor and fear of parents, but both the old and new covenant testify sufficiently concerning this.

Let us see, however, if they honor even the spiritual parents. Who then is the spiritual father? Certainly, after God, the priest who baptized you; for it is written: 'In Christ Jesus through the gospel I have begotten you' (1 Corinthians 4:15), and 'Behold, I and the children which you, O God, have given me' (Psalm 127:3), and to those who have fallen, 'My children, for whom I labor again, until Christ is formed in you' (Galatians 4:19). Which also...

We stand and aim to become part of them; and the mother is certainly the church and the one who has nurtured you. So, if the heretic recognizes these, he knows the benefit from them, that through these he escaped the tyranny of the devil, and through these he was named a Christian? What do I say, 'Christian'? He clothed himself with Christ himself; for the scripture says: 'As many as were baptized into Christ, have clothed yourselves with Christ' (Gal 3:27), only if you have not again stripped yourself off by the serpent. What then is against these things? Do you recognize these, or have you denied even these? And what will you do? For if you have dishonored those who begat you according to the flesh, and have denied those who regenerated you through the bath of rebirth, from where will your life come?

But since you have truly departed to a far country and have consumed the part of the father's essence which was laid upon you, and you feed pigs, eating the bran and the chaff of the first mill; for there are not sheep there, for the good shepherd is one and his flock is one. And what is the essence which you have lost? It is manifest and also very clear: the faith and the gift which you received through baptism. For just as having been baptized into Christ you clothed yourself with Christ, so, having departed from the church, you have stripped yourself of Christ.

And so that you may not think the said thing to be a sophism, when that son turned back, the father commanded nothing else than that the first robe and the ring be given to him. Imitate this one, brother; arise from earthly thoughts just as he arose from the earth, having come into himself, just as he also said: 'How do the hired servants of my father abound in bread, but I perish here with hunger?' (Luke 15:17). I do not have bread capable of supporting the heart of a man, but only the food of pigs, the bran. And what are these, but rather the devilish writings, as we will show in another discourse?

Remember from where you fell, how you were led astray being deceived by the serpent promising great things, in order that he might deprive you of the good things present. For in the beginning, the Word taught, that he thus deceived the first human, that is, the woman, saying: 'You shall be as gods' (Gen 3:5). And he led you away with the same deceit through the name of self-control and of renunciation from the father's house to the far country, to which there were not sheep, but only pigs. And if you had guarded the...