Caesarius of Arles

In his own words on Hosea

• Hosea 6:2

  The prince of this world did not want the Lord's army to recognize the engagement of those three days, as that engagement of which the prophet said, "He will revive us after two days; on the third day he will raise us up." The first day for us is the passion of the Savior; the second day on which he descended into hell; but the third day is the day of the resurrection. So then on the third day God went before them in a pillar of cloud by day and by night in a pillar of fire, and the people were led through the Red Sea. The three days we can fittingly call the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, for the Father is a day, the Son is one, and the Holy Spirit is one, and these three are one.

  SERMON 97:1

• Hosea 7:4-6

  Although you might marry and in the face of the authority of all the Scriptures never commit adultery, why do you not with God's grace accept what is lawful? Instead you dare to offend God and commit what is unlawful. I would like to know whether those who have no wives, and neither fear nor blush to commit adultery before they are joined in wedlock, would want their spouses to be violated by adulterers before they come to marriage. Since there is no one who would patiently accept this, why does not each one observe toward his spouse the fidelity he wants observed by her? Why does one desire to take a virgin as his wife, when he himself is corrupted? Why does he wish to be united to a wife who is alive, when he is dead in soul because of adultery, according to what is written: "The soul that sins shall die"? Moreover, the apostle exclaims in terrible words, "God will judge the immoral and adulterers," and "Adulterers will not possess the kingdom of God." Furthermore, "They are all adulterers, their hearts like an oven."

  SERMON 43

• Hosea 9:10

  Similarly, the law of the Old Testament, which we said the image of the fig tree represented, threw away the first Jewish people who were useless, that is, sinful and wicked. When these sycophants, to use the Greek word, had been rejected, that is, the conceited and worthless Israelites, there created for Christ through grace as its mother, the rich and fruitful Christian people who were further brought to perfect knowledge of the gospel. Although there is a genus of fig trees that brings its first fruits to maturity, called double bearing, it may signify those of whom it is said, "The Lord loved those figs as his precursors." The patriarchs are the precursors.

  SERMON 106