GOD WHO KNOWS HEARTS …GAVE THEM (the gentiles) THE HOLY SPIRIT… AND CLEANSED THEIR HEARTS BY FAITH (Acts 15:8, 9).This important text has not received the attention it deserves from exegetes and spiritual writers. St. Peter here displays a very significant grasp of the concept of the action of the Holy Spirit as the agent of purification and the simultaneous role of faith in the process of this purification of the human heart. The Western version of The Acts, states that Peter spoke in the Holy Spirit when he rose to give the speech in which these words occur, thus assuring that his words are not merely a human opinion but possess prophetic authority.

None of the points made in these remarks originate with St. Peter; they are rather a faithful and authoritative elaboration of teachings stressed by Jesus in his preaching and instruction. Peter, as represented in St. Luke's masterful portrayal, makes an original contribution by his forceful and concise presentation of the work of sanctification as revealed by the Lord to his disciples. He effects a synthesis of Jesus' teaching that disengages the essentials of his message in so far as it calls for a practical response from his hearers. The most original contribution he provides hereconsists in understanding the role of faith precisely as purifying the heart.

The Lord himself presented his doctrine as the fulfillment and culmination of the law and the prophets who went before him. His revelation was in large part itself an authoritative interpretation of the Torah given to the chosen people through Moses, and of the prophetic witness to God's true intent in giving this earlier revelation. "Do not think I have come to destroy the law and the prophets; I have not come to destroy but to fulfill (Mt. 5:17)." He not only taught this view of his mission during his lifetime, but also developed it further during the interval following his resurrection. In point of fact, it would seem that such explanation of his teaching was a major purpose of his appearing to his disciples during those forty days. Luke is quite explicit on this point. "These are the words that I spoke to you when I was still with you (in the flesh), that all that was written concerning me in the Law of Moses and the prophets and the psalms had to be fulfilled. Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures (Luke 24: 44)."

The condition for receiving this instruction is faith in Jesus as the risen Lord, the Son of the Living God. The words of Jesus just cited above were pronounced only after the apostles had assented to the reality of the resurrection. He first showed them the wounds in his hands and feet, and when they still hesitated to believe it was truly he, he ate in their presence. Only then, when they were convinced and yielded their faith to him, did he find them prepared to understand the essentials of his doctrine. This is precisely the point that St. Peter brings out in his discourse as quoted at the head of this talk. "GOD WHO KNOWS HEARTS …GAVE THEM (the gentiles) THE HOLY SPIRIT… AND CLEANSED THEIR HEARTS BY FAITH (Acts 15:8, 9)." Faith is essential for preparing the heart to know the Lord Jesus and so to see the Father in seeing him. "He who sees me sees the Father (John 14: 9)."

The role of faith in attaining to purity of heart is a truth that has all too often been given little attention. We conceive of purity of heart largely in moral terms. This is entirely warranted as appears from Jesus' words in the Gospel where he refers to uncleanness of the heart as arising from such passionate thoughts as anger, jealously, lust and greed. The early Fathers grasped the import of this concept of purity of heart and often insisted on it. The earliest Patristic literature witnesses to a keen sensitivity to the obligation to avoid all defiling thoughts. The Epistle to Barnabas and The Shepherd Hermas give a particularly stringent view of this duty of the Christian, as Raasch notes in her study of this topic (cf. "The Monastic Concept of Purity of Heart", in Studia Monastica 8 (1966), 29 ff. I follow this well reasoned article and its references in the following paragraphs). "They who think evil in their hearts bring upon themselves death and captivity", Hermas was told in a vision (cf. art. cit. 31). Adultery was the chief of such unclean and deadly thoughts, but any thoughts against chastity, as well as anger, greed, or jealousy were also defiling, as Jesus had stated already.

However, other fathers understood that these were not the only obstacles to holiness of life. Purity of heart was not only a matter of eliminating desires and thoughts of disordered passion, but also demanded right thoughts about God, Jesus and creation. In short, as St. Peter had so concisely put the matter: "GOD WHO KNOWS HEARTS… CLEANSED THEIR HEARTS BY FAITH." Writing shortly after the year 200 A.D. the author of the Pseudo-Clementine Homilies expresses an awareness of the importance of divinely inspired thoughts, and so, by implication, of faith, on the state of the heart. "And so as men having something more than brute animals, namely rationality, purify the heart from evil by the heavenly intellect (Homily XI.28 PG 2: 295). More explicitly, St. Irenaeus understands the need for true faith to attain to a pure heart.

There is both bodily holiness, the safeguard of abstinence from all shameful things and all wicked deeds, and holiness of soul, the preservation in its integrity of faith in God, adding nothing and subtracting nothing from it…Action then is perfected by faith. (Raasch, op. cit., 206).

Faith must be put into practice by study and meditation as the same Father points out in another text in his work against heretics who threaten the true faith.

Who are the pure? Those who make their way firmly by faith in the Father and the Son… and meditate day and night on the words of God so that they might be adorned with good works (Contra Haereses V.VIII.3).

Irenaeus comments further that it is not only the vice of impurity but also the lack of faith that renders certain persons carnal and animal-like, and constitutes an obstacle to their receiving the Holy Spirit. Later on St. Gregory of Nyssa was to make the same point more strikingly.

If the adulterers must be listed by name anger is an adulterer, avarice an adulterer, bearing a grudge is an adulterer, remembrance of injuries an adulterer, enmity, jealousy, and, for the rest, all that the apostle brings together, form a list of adulterers as being repugnant to sound teaching (De Virginitate 15 PG 46: 383).

Cassian also was to take up this same theme, considering that for the monk any thought that was idle or concerned with matters not pertaining to the search for God was a form of spiritual adultery. Pertinent to our inquiry, though, is the fact that St. Gregory here considers these various passions not only as moral defects but also precisely as opposed to sound doctrine. It is this aspect that he stresses at the end of his catalogue of defiling vices. Sound teaching is integral to purity of heart and contributes largely to attaining to this state that so greatly facilitates the contemplative experience of God. St. Methodius is still another early author who underlined the importance of filling the heart with the right ideas concerning God and Christ and his teaching. Without meditation on the word of God in which the heart is cleansed from defiling thoughts the life of virginity would be much threatened.

Souls are cared for and cleansed when they contend to listen diligently to the divine words, not desisting from assiduously attending the halls of the wise before they attain to Truth. Salt preserves meat from rotting by absorbing its fluids and whatever else causes its corruption. In the case of virginity, all unreasonable lusts of the body are stifled by the doctrines that are learned…. It is essential then that the virgin always loves what is noble and be held in honor by persons prominent for their wisdom, avoiding what is easy and soft. She should excel by her concern for matters worthy of her state, always cleansing herself from the fluids of sensual pleasure by her study of the word (Convivium Decem Virginum, I.1 PG 18:37 B- C, 40 A).

In the Middle Ages as well as during the patristic period emphasis on the role of faith and doctrine in attaining to purity of heart found a prominent exponent in the person of St. Bernard of Clairvaux. In treating of the effect on the apostles of Jesus' departure from them through his ascent to the Father he brings out this point. "Why", he asked, "did the Spirit not come while Christ remained on earth?"

So that he might show us the way we should walk he displayed the form by which we should be imprinted. While they were weeping he was raised up to heaven whence he sent the Holy Spirit who cleansed their affection, that is to say, their will…. Thus their intelligence was illuminated through Christ and their will cleansed by the Holy Spirit so that as they might know the good so they would will it. This alone is perfect religion or religious perfection (In Ascensione Domini Sermo III.4 PL 183: 306 B, C).

Implied in these words is the conviction that by faith we must be shown the proper form of life according to the mysteries of Christ before we can properly be reformed in his likeness and attain the perfection of purity of heart.

The Biblical concept of faith (cf. John O'Donnell, SJ "The New Dictionary of Theology," s.v. Faith) in the Old Testament has to do chiefly with reliability, firmness and trust as the Hebrew word for "believe", hi'emin indicates. God alone deserves complete trust for only He can provide fully for our needs. He is faithful; He stands by his word which, once given, is a firm promise that can be trusted in. His word calls for a wholehearted response in the form of a surrender of one's self in obedience to His commands.

The intellectual element is certainly not lacking in this OT faith, as can be seen in Deuteronomy which contains a primitive Creed that Israel adhered to. But the intellectual content is considerably less prominent than the yielding of the will in submission. Faith is less believing something than belief in the living God. Faith takes one beyond evidence. There is, accordingly, a felt risk entailed in the act of faith as is evidenced in the life of Abraham, the Father and model of faith, not only for the Jews but also for Jesus himself and his followers. Our Lord surpassed Abraham's faith but built upon it and absorbed it, as it were, taking it to a more elevated plane to which only he could attain. The Word of God included in his self-emptying at the Incarnation the full human condition which comprises the need to live by faith in God. Jesus' faith was tested to the full when he was rejected by his own people, deserted by his followers and seemingly abandoned by his Father. But he remained obedient and trusting even in death and so became the new model and pattern of faith for his followers.

Jesus not only lived by faith he came to teach its radical importance and, by his resurrection became the very basis for the kind of belief that henceforth was to characterize the true Israel. Faith in God came to mean faith in his emissary, the one whom God sent into the world to reveal His plan of salvation. On the night before he went to his death Jesus encouraged his apostles by making this very point. "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me (John 14:1)." Faith for Jesus clearly means to trust in God's fidelity and at the same time in his own empowerment to act on behalf of the Father for the eternal good of his adherents.

After the Lord's Ascension St. Peter preached this truth in his first sermon, the content of which contained the essence of the original kerygma: " And so know this for certain, O whole house of Israel, that God made Lord and Christ this very Jesus whom you crucified (Acts 2:36)." To accept this truth into the heart is to receive the Holy Spirit who inspires such acceptance in faith. The gradual development of this fundamental message is observable in the New Testament itself. As the kerygma was preached and committed to writing, the apostles and evangelists, guided and inspired by the Spirit, adapted it to the lives of those who were to receive it. The circumstances in which the Gospel was conveyed varied and evolved with the spread of the mission and the passing of the years.

Thus in order to make more pertinent the significance and meaning of Jesus as Christ and Lord Matthew presented him as the new Moses, giver of the law of the Spirit. St. John saw the need to penetrate more deeply into the mystery of the person of Jesus. He proclaimed him as the eternal Logos made flesh who freely implemented the Father's plan of salvation through his death and resurrection. This same process of clarifying and defining the original deposit of faith continued through the generations down to the present, under the guidance of the Spirit promised and given by the Lord Jesus. In liturgical rites and texts, by decrees of Councils, the teachings of the holy Bishops and Doctors, the proclamations and decisions of the Bishops of Rome especially, this content of the faith continues to be elaborated and applied to new circumstances. Through and in all such teachings there is present the Lord himself, present and active, both in his own person and through his Holy Spirit, in the midst of his Church and in the heart of his faithful. St. Bernard gives voice to this belief that has accompanied the promulgation of the Gospel through the centuries.

I do not wish to protract this discussion with you on the kiss (of the Spirit) any further. In tomorrow's sermon you will hear what the unction deigns to suggest to me as He teaches about all things. For flesh and blood do not reveal this secret but He who searches out the profound things of God, the Holy Spirit who proceeds from the Father and the Son and who lives together with them and reigns for ages unending (Sermones in Canticle VII.8 PL 183: 810 C).

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