Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament

³ These things then the Lord did to invite us to the faith. This faith reigns now in the Church, which is spread throughout the whole world. And now He works greater cures, on account of which He disdained not then to exhibit those lesser ones. For as the soul is better than the body, so is the saving health of the soul better than the health of the body. The blind body does not now open its eyes by a miracle of the Lord, but the blinded heart opens its eyes to the word of the Lord.

The mortal corpse does not now rise again, but the soul does rise again which lay dead in a living body. The deaf ears of the body are not now opened; but how many have the ears of their heart closed, which yet fly open at the penetrating word of God, so that they believe who did not believe, and they live well, who did live evilly, and they obey, who did not obey; and we say, “Such a man has become a believer;” and we wonder when we hear of them whom once we had known as hardened.

Why then do you marvel at one who now believes, who is living innocently, and serving God; but because you behold him seeing, whom you had known to be blind; dost behold him living, whom you had known to be dead; dost behold him hearing, whom you had known to be deaf? For consider that there are who are dead in another than the ordinary sense, of whom the Lord spoke to a certain man who delayed to follow the Lord, because he wished to bury his father; “Let the dead,” said He, “bury their dead.” Surely these dead buriers are not dead in body; for if this were so, they could not bury dead bodies.

Yet does he call them dead; where, but in the soul within? For as we may often see in a household, itself sound and well, the master of the same house lying dead; so in a sound body do many carry a dead soul within; and these the Apostle arouses thus, “Awake, you that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light.” It is the Same who gives light to the blind, that awakens the dead. For it is with His voice that the cry is made by the Apostle to the dead, “Awake, you that sleepest.”

And the blind will be enlightened with light, when he shall have risen again. And how many deaf men did the Lord see before His eyes, when He said, “He that has ears to hear, let him hear.” For who was standing before Him without his bodily ears? What other ears then did He seek for, but those of the inner man?