Sermon XLIX. [XCIX. Ben.] On the words of the Gospel, Luke vii. 37, “And behold, a woman who was in the city, a sinner,” etc. On the remission of sins, against the Donatists. 1. Since I believe that it is the will of God that I should speak to you on the subject whereof we are now reminded by the words of the Lord out of the Holy Scriptures, I will by His assistance deliver to you, Beloved, a Sermon touching the remission of sins. For when the Gospel was being read, ye gave most earnest heed, and the story was reported, and rep- 416 resented before the eyes of your heart. For ye saw, not with the body, but with the mind, the Lord Jesus Christ “sitting at meat in the Pharisee’s house,”3213 and when invited by him, not disdaining to go. Ye saw too a “woman” famous in the city, famous indeed in ill fame, “who was a sinner,” without invitation force her way into the feast, where her Physician was at meat, and with an holy shamelessness seek for health. She forced her way then, as it were unseasonably as regarded the feast, but seasonably as regarded her expected blessing; for she well knew under how severe a disease she was labouring, and she knew that He to whom she had come was able to make her whole; she approached then, not to the Head of the Lord, but to His Feet; and she who had walked long in evil, sought now the steps of Upright- ness. First she shed tears, the heart’s blood; and washed the Lord’s Feet with the duty of confession. She wiped them with her hair, she kissed, she anointed them: she spake by her silence; she uttered not a word, but she manifested her devotion. 2. So then because she touched the Lord, in watering, kissing, washing, anointing His feet; the Pharisee who had invited the Lord Jesus Christ, seeing He was of that kind of proud men of whom the Prophet Isaiah says, “Who say, Depart far from me, touch me not, for I am clean;”3214 thought that the Lord did not know the woman. This he was thinking with himself, and saying in his heart, “This man if He were a prophet, would have known what woman this is that” hath approached His feet. He supposed that He did not know her, because He repelled her not, because He did not forbid her to approach Him, because He suffered Himself to be touched by her, sinner as she was. For whence knew he, that He did not know her? But what if He did know, O thou Pharisee, inviter and yet derider of the Lord! Thou dost feed the Lord, yet by whom thou art to be fed thyself, thou dost not understand. Whereby knowest thou, that the Lord did not know what that woman had been, save because she was permitted to approach Him, save because by His sufferance she kissed His Feet, save because she washed, save because she anointed them? For these things a woman unclean ought not to be permitted to do with the Feet that are clean? So then had such a woman approached that Pharisee’s feet, he would have been sure to say what Isaiah says of such; “Depart from 3213 Luke vii. 36. 3214 Isa. lxv. 5, Sept. On the words of the Gospel, Luke vii. 37, ‘And behold, a woman who was in the city, a sinner,’ etc. On the remission of sins, against the Donatists. 867 On the words of the Gospel, Luke vii. 37, ‘And behold, a woman who was in…