by Saint Aurelius
Augustine (396-430), Bishop of Hippo
Written in the Year of Our Lord 421.
Translated by Professor J.F. Shaw, Derry
See texts of all church fathers http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/
This book was written to Laurentius, a Roman about whom we know little,
who had asked Augustine to furnish him with a handbook of Christian doctrine,
containing brief answers to various questions.
Augustine responded by writing this Enchiridion.
Xn. = Christian; Faith, Hope & Love = FHL;
HS = Holy Spirit.
I
cannot express, my beloved son Laurentius, the delight with which I witness
your progress in knowledge, and the earnest desire I have that you should be a
wise man: not one of those of whom it
is said, “Where is the wise? where is
the scribe? where is the disputer of
this world? hath not God made foolish
the wisdom of this world?” but one of those of whom it is said, “The multitude
of the wise is the welfare of the world,”‘ and such as the apostles wishes
those to become, whom he tells,” I would have you wise unto that which is good,
and simple concerning evil.” Now, just
as no one can exist of himself, so no one san be wise of himself, but only by
the enlightening influence of Him of whom it is written, “All wisdom cometh
from the Lord.”
The
true wisdom of man is piety. You find
this in the book of holy Job. For we
read there what wisdom itself has said to man:
“Behold, the fear of the Lord [pietas], that is wisdom.” If you ask further what is meant in that
place by pietas, the Greek calls it more definitely qeosebeia, that is,
the worship of God. The Greeks
sometimes call piety eusebeia, which signifies right worship, though
this, of course, refers specially to the worship of God. But when we are defining in what man’s true
wisdom consists, the most convenient word to use is that which distinctly
expresses the fear of God. And can you,
who are anxious that I should treat of great matters in few words, wish for a
briefer form of expression? Or perhaps
you are anxious that this expression should itself be briefly explained, and
that I should unfold in a short discourse the proper mode of worshipping God?
Now
if I should answer, that God is to be worshipped with faith, hope, and love,
you will at once say that this answer is too brief, and will ask me briefly to
unfold the objects of each of these three graces, viz., what we are to believe,
what we are to hope for, and what we are to love. And when I have done this, you will have an answer to all the
questions you asked in your letter. If
you have kept a copy of your letter, you can easily turn it up and read it over
again: if you have not, you will have
no difficulty in recalling it when I refresh your memory.
You
are anxious, you say, that I should write a sort of handbook for you, which you
might always keep beside you, containing answers to the questions you put,
viz.: what ought to be man’s chief end
in life; what he ought, in view of the
various heresies, chiefly to avoid; to
what extent religion is supported by reason;
what there is in reason that lends no support to faith, when faith
stands alone; what is the
starting-point, what the goal, of religion;
what is the sum of the whole body of doctrine; what is the sure and proper foundation of the catholic faith. Now, undoubtedly, you will know the answers
to all these questions, if you know thoroughly the proper objects of faith,
hope, and love. For these must be the
chief, nay, the exclusive objects of pursuit in religion. He who speaks against these is either a
total stranger to the name of Christ, or is a heretic. These are to be defended by reason, which
must have its starting-point either in the bodily senses or in the intuitions
of the mind. And what we have neither
had experience of through our bodily senses, nor have been able to reach
through the intellect, must undoubtedly be believed on the testimony of those
witnesses by whom the Scriptures, justly called divine, were written; and who by divine assistance were enabled,
either through bodily sense or intellectual perception, to see or to foresee
the things in question.
Moreover,
when the mind has been imbued with the first elements of that faith which
worketh by love, it endeavors by purity of life to attain unto sight, where the
pure and [perfect in heart know that unspeakable beauty, the full vision of
which is supreme happiness. Here surely
is an answer to your question as to what is the starting-point, and what the
goal: we begin in faith, and are made
perfect by sight. This also is the sum
of the whole body of doctrine. But the
sure and proper foundation of the catholic faith is Christ. “For other foundation,” says the apostle,
“can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.” Nor are we to deny that this is the proper
foundation of the catholic faith, because it may be supposed that some heretics
hold this in common with us. For if we
carefully consider the things that pertain to Christ, we shall find that, among
those heretics who call themselves Christians, Christ is present in name
only: in deed and in truth He is not
among them. But to show this would
occupy us too long, for we should require to go over all the heresies which
have existed, which do exist, or which could exist, under the Christian name,
and to show that this is true in the case of each—a discussion which would
occupy so many volumes as to be all but interminable.
Now
you ask of me a handbook, that is, one that can be carried in the hand, not one
to load your shelves. To return, then,
to the three graces through which, as I have said, God should be
worshipped—faith, hope, and love: to
state what are the true and proper objects of each of these is easy. But to defend this true doctrine against the
assaults of those who hold an opposite opinion, requires much fuller and more
elaborate instruction. And the true way
to obtain this instruction is not to have a short treatise put into one’s
hands, but to have a great zeal kindled in one’s heart.
For
you have the Creed and the Lord’s Prayer.
What can be briefer to hear or to read?
What easier to commit to memory?
When, as the result of sin, the human race was groaning under a heavy
load of misery, and was in urgent need of the divine compassion, one of the
prophets, anticipating the time of God’s grace, declared: “And it shall come to pass, that whosoever
shall call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered.” Hence the Lord’s Prayer. But the apostle, when, for the purpose of
commending this very grace, he had quoted this prophetic testimony, immediately
added: “How then shall they call on Him
in whom they have not believed?” Hence the Creed. In these two you have those three graces exemplified: faith believes, hope and love pray. But without faith the two last cannot exist,
and therefore we may say that faith also prays. Whence it is written:
“How shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed?”
Again,
can anything be hoped for which is not an object of faith? It is true that a thing which is not an
object of hope may be believed. What
true Christian, for example, does not believe in the punishment of the
wicked? And yet such an one does not hope
for it. And the man who believes that
punishment to be hanging over himself, and who shrinks in horror from the
prospect, is more properly said to fear than to hope. And these two states of mind the poet carefully distinguishes,
when he says: “Permit the fearful to
have hope.”
Another
poet, who is usually much superior to this one, makes a wrong use of the word,
when he says: “If I have been able to
hope for so great a grief as this.” And
some grammarians take this case as an example of impropriety of speech, saying,
“He said sperare [to hope] instead of timere [to fear].”
Accordingly,
faith may have for its object evil as well as good; for both good and evil are believed, and the faith that believes
them is not evil, but good.
Faith,
moreover, is concerned with the past, the present, and the future, all
three. We believe, for example, that
Christ died—an event in the past; we
believe that He is sitting at the right hand of God—a state of things which is
present; we believe that He will come
to judge the quick and the dead—an event of the future. Again, faith applies both to one’s own
circumstances and those of others.
Every one, for example, believes that his own existence had a beginning,
and was not eternal, and he believes the same both of other men and other
things. Many of our beliefs in regard
to religious matters, again, have reference not merely to other men, but to
angels also. But hope has for its object
only what is good, only what is future, and only what affects the man who
entertains the hope. For these reasons,
then, faith must be distinguished from hope, not merely as a matter of verbal
propriety, but because they are essentially different. The fact that we do not see either what we
believe or what we hope for, is all that is common to faith and hope. In the Epistle to the Hebrews, for example,
faith is defined (and eminent defenders of the catholic faith have used the
definition as a standard) “the evidence of things not seen.” Although, should any one say that he believes,
that is, has grounded his faith, not on words, nor on witnesses, nor on any
reasoning whatever, but on the direct evidence of his own senses, he would not
be guilty of such an impropriety of speech as to be justly liable to the
criticism, “You saw, therefore you did not believe.” And hence it does not follow that an object of faith is not an
object of sight. But it is better that
we should use the word “faith” as the Scriptures have taught us, applying it to
those things which are not seen. Concerning
hope, again, the apostle says: “Hope
that is seen is not hope; for what a
man seeth, why doth he yet hope for?
But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for
it.” When, then, we believe that good
is about to come, this is nothing else but to hope for it. Now what shall I say of love? Without it, faith profits nothing; and in its absence, hope cannot exist. The Apostle James says: “The devils also believe, and tremble.” —that is, they, having neither hope nor
love, but believing that what we love and hope for is about to come, are in
terror. And so the Apostle Paul
approves and commends the “faith that worketh by love;” and this certainly
cannot exist without hope. Wherefore
there is no love without hope, no hope without love, and neither love nor hope
without faith.
When,
then, the question is asked what we are to believe in regard to religion, it is
not necessary to probe into the nature of things, as was done by those whom the
Greeks call physici; nor need we be in
alarm lest the Christian should be ignorant of the force and number of the
elements—the motion, and order, and eclipses of the heavenly bodies; the form of the heavens; the species and the natures of animals,
plants, stones, fountains, rivers, mountains;
about chronology and distances;
the signs of coming storms; and
a thousand other things which those philosophers either have found out, or
think they have found out. For even
these men themselves, endowed though they are with so much genius, burning with
zeal, abounding in leisure, tracking some things by the aid of human
conjecture, searching into others with the aids of history and experience, have
not found out all things; and even
their boasted discoveries are oftener mere guesses than certain knowledge. It is enough for the Christian to believe
that the only cause of all created things, whether heavenly or earthly, whether
visible or invisible, is the goodness of the Creator the one true God; and that nothing exists but Himself that
does not derive its existence from Him;
and that He is the Trinity—to wit, the Father, and the Son begotten of
the Father, and the Holy Spirit proceeding from the same Father, but one and
the same Spirit of Father and Son.
By
the Trinity, thus supremely and equally and unchangeably good, all things were
created; and these are not supremely
and equally and unchangeably good, but yet they are, good, even taken
separately. Taken as a whole, however,
they are very good, because their e, ensemble constitutes the universe in all
its wonderful order and beauty.
And
in the universe, even that which is called evil, when it is regulated and put
in its own place, only enhances our admiration of the good; for we enjoy and value the good more when we
compare it with the evil. For the
Almighty God, who, as even the heathen acknowledge, has supreme power over all
things, being Himself supremely good, would never permit the existence of
anything evil among His works, if He were not so omnipotent and good that He
can bring good even out of evil. For
what is that which we call evil but the absence of good? In the bodies of animals, disease and wounds
mean nothing but the absence of health;
for when a cure is effected, that does not mean that the evils which
were present—namely, the diseases and wounds—go away from the body and dwell
elsewhere: they altogether cease to
exist; for the wound or disease is not
a substance, but a defect in the fleshly substance—the flesh itself being a
substance, and therefore something good, of which those evils—that is,
privations of the good which we call health—are accidents. Just in the same way, what are called vices
in the soul are nothing but privations of natural good. And when they are cured, they are not
transferred elsewhere: when they cease
to exist in the healthy soul, they cannot exist anywhere else.
All
things that exist, therefore, seeing that the Creator of them all is supremely
good, are themselves good. But because
they are not, like their Creator, supremely and unchangeably good, their good
may be diminished and increased. But
for good to be diminished is an evil, although, however much it may be
diminished, it is necessary, if the being is to continue, that some good should
remain to constitute the being. For
however small or of whatever kind the being may be, the good which makes it a
being cannot be destroyed without destroying the being itself. An uncorrupted nature is justly held in
esteem. But if, still further, it be
incorruptible, it is undoubtedly considered of still higher value. When it is corrupted, however, its
corruption is an evil, because it is deprived of some sort of good. For if it be deprived of no good, it receives
no injury; but it does receive injury,
therefore it is deprived of good.
Therefore, so long as a being is in process of corruption, there is in
it some good of which it is being deprived;
and if a part of the being should remain which cannot be corrupted, this
will certainly be an incorruptible being, and accordingly the process of
corruption will result in the manifestation of this great good. But if it do not cease to be corrupted,
neither can it cease to possess good of which corruption may deprive it. But if it should be thoroughly and
completely consumed by corruption, there will then be no good left, because
there will be no being. Wherefore
corruption can consume the good only by consuming the being. Every being, therefore, is a good; a great good, if it can not be
corrupted; a little good, if it
can: but in any case, only the foolish
or ignorant will deny that it is a good.
And if it be wholly consumed by corruption, then the corruption itself
must cease to exist, as there is no being left in which it can dwell.
Accordingly,
there is nothing of what we call evil, if there be nothing good. But a good which is wholly without evil is a
perfect good. A good, on the other
hand, which contains evil is a faulty or imperfect good; and there can be no evil where there is no
good. From all this we arrive at the
curious result: that since every being,
so far as it is a being, is good, when we say that a faulty being is an evil
being, we just seem to say that what is good is evil, and that nothing but what
is good can be evil, seeing that every being is good, and that no evil can
exist except in a being. Nothing, then,
can be evil except something which is good.
And although this, when stated, seems to be a contradiction, yet the
strictness of reasoning leaves us no escape from the conclusion. We must, however, beware of incurring the
prophetic condemnation: “Woe unto them
that call evil good, and good evil:
that put. darkness for light,
and light for darkness: that put bitter
for sweet, and sweet for bitter.” And
yet our Lord says: “An evil man out of
the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil.” Now, what is evil man but an evil
being? for a man is a being. Now, if a man is a good thing because he is
a being, what is an evil man but an evil good?
Yet, when we accurately distinguish these two things, we find that it is
not because he is a man that he is an evil, or because he is wicked that he is
a good; but that he is a good because
he is a man, and an evil because he is wicked.
Whoever, then, says, “To be a man is an evil,” or, “To be wicked is a
good,” falls under the prophetic denunciation:
“Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil!” For he condemns the
work of God, which is the man, and praises the defect of man, which is the
wickedness. Therefore every being, even
if it be a defective one, in so far as it is a being is good, and in so far as
it is defective is evil.
Accordingly,
in the case of these contraries which we call good and evil, the rule of the
logicians, that two contraries cannot be predicated at the same time of the
same thing, does not hold. No weather
is at the same time dark and bright: no
food or drink is at the same time sweet and bitter: no body is at the same time and in the same place black and
white: none is at the same time and in
the same place deformed and beautiful.
And this rue is found to hold in regard to many, indeed nearly all,
contraries, that they cannot exist at the same time in any one thing. But although no one can doubt that good and
evil are contraries, not only can they exist at the same time, but evil cannot
exist without good. or in anything that
is not good. Good, however, can exist
without evil. For a man or an angel can
exist without being wicked; but nothing
can be wicked except a man or an angel:
and so far as he is a man or an angel, he is good; so far as he is wicked, he is an evil. And these two contraries are so far
co-existent, that if good did not exist in what is evil, neither could evil
exist; because corruption could not
have either a place to dwell in, or a source to spring from, if there were
nothing that could be corrupted; and
nothing can be corrupted except what is good, for corruption is nothing else
but the destruction of good. From what
is good, then, evils arose, and except in what is good they do not exist; nor was there any other source from which
any evil nature could arise. For if
there were, then, in so far as this was a being, it was certainly a good: and a being which was incorruptible would be
a great good; and even one which was
corruptible must be to some extent a good, for only by corrupting what was good
in it could corruption do it harm.
But
when we say that evil springs out of good, let it not be thought that this
contradicts our Lord’s saying: “A good
tree cannot bring forth evil fruit.”
For, as He who is the Truth says, you cannot gather grapes of thorns,
because grapes do not grow on thorns.
But we see that on good soil both vines and thorns may be grown. And in the same way, just as an evil tree
cannot bring forth good fruit, so an evil will cannot produce good works. But from the nature of man, which is good,
may spring either a good or an evil will.
And certainly there was at first no source from which an evil will could
spring, except the nature of angel or of man, which was good. And our Lord Himself clearly shows this in
the very same place where He speaks about the tree and its fruit. For He says: “Either make the tree good, and his fruit good; or else make the tree corrupt, and his fruit
corrupt,” —clearly enough warning us that evil fruits do not grow on a good
tree, nor good fruits on an evil tree;
but that nevertheless the ground itself, by which He meant those whom He
was then addressing, might grow either kind of trees.
Now,
in view of these considerations, when we are pleased with that line of Maro,
“Happy the man who has attained to the knowledge of the causes of things,” we
should not suppose that it is necessary to happiness to know the causes of the
great physical convulsions, causes which lie hid in the most secret recesses of
nature’s kingdom, “whence comes the earthquake whose force makes the deep seas
to swell and burst their barriers, and again to return upon themselves and
settle down.” But we ought to know the
causes of good and evil as far as man may in this life know them, in order to
avoid the mistakes and troubles of which this life is so full. For our aim must always be to reach that
state of happiness in which no trouble shall distress us, and no error mislead
us. If we must know the causes of
physical convulsions, there are none which it concerns us more to know than
those which affect our own health. But
seeing that, in our ignorance of these, we are fain to resort to physicians, it
would seem that we might bear with considerable patience our ignorance of the
secrets that lie hid in the earth and heavens.
For
although we ought with the greatest possible care to avoid error, not only in
great but even in little things, and although we cannot err except through
ignorance, it does not follow that, if a man is ignorant of a thing, he must
forthwith fall into error. That is
rather the fate of the man who thinks he knows what he does not know. For he accepts what is false as if it were
true, and that is the essence of error.
But it is a point of very great importance what the subject is in regard
to which a man makes a mistake. For on
one and the same subject we rightly prefer an instructed man to an ignorant
one, and a man who is not in error to one who is. In the case of different subjects, however—that is, when one man
knows one thing, and another a different thing, and when what the former knows
is useful, and what the latter knows is not so useful, or is actually
hurtful—who would not, in regard to the things the latter knows, prefer the
ignorance of the former to the knowledge of the latter? For there are points on which ignorance is
better than knowledge. And in the same
way, it has sometimes been an advantage to depart from the right way—in
travelling, however, not in morals. It
has happened to myself to take the wrong road where two ways met, so that I did
not pass by the place where an armed band of Donatists lay in wait for me. Yet I arrived at the place whither I was
bent, though by a roundabout route; and
when I heard of the ambush, I congratulated myself on my mistake, and gave
thanks to God for it. Now, who would
not rather be the traveller who made a mistake like this, than the highwayman
who made no mistake? And hence,
perhaps, it is that the prince of poets puts these words into the mouth of a
lover in misery: “How I am undone. how I have been carried away by an evil
error!” for there is an error which is good, as it not merely does no harm, hut
produces some actual advantage. But
when we look more closely into the nature of truth, and consider that to err is
just to take the false for the true, and the true for the false, or to hold
what is certain as uncertain, and what is uncertain as certain, and that error
in the soul is hideous and repulsive just in proportion as it appears fair and
plausible when we utter it, or assent to it, saying, “Yea, yea; Nay, nay,”—surely this life that we live is
wretched indeed, if only on this account, that sometimes, in order to preserve
it, it is necessary to fall into error.
God forbid that such should be that other life, where truth itself is
the life of the soul, where no one deceives, and no one is deceived. But here men deceive and are deceived, and
they are more to be pitied when they lead others astray than when they are
themselves led astray by putting trust in liars. Yet so much does a rational soul shrink from what is false, and
so earnestly does it struggle against error, that even those who love to
deceive are most unwilling to be deceived.
For
the liar does not think that he errs, but that he leads another who trusts him
into error. And certainly he does not
err in regard to the matter about which he lies, if he himself knows the truth; but he is deceived in this, that he thinks
his lie does him no harm, whereas every sin is more hurtful to the sinner than
to the sinned against.
But
here arises a very difficult and very intricate question, about which I once
wrote a large book, finding it necessary to give it an answer. The question is this: whether at any time it can become the duty
of a good man to tell a lie? For some
go so far as to contend that there are occasions on which it is a good and
pious work to commit perjury even, and to say what is false about matters that
relate to the worship of God, and about the very nature of God Himself. To me, however, it seems certain that every
lie is a sin, though it makes a great difference with what intention and on
what subject one lies. For the sin of
the man who tells a lie to help another is not so heinous as that of the man
who tells a lie to injure another; and
the man who by his lying puts a traveller on the wrong road, does not do so
much harm as the man who by false or misleading representations distorts the
whole course of a life. No one, of
course, is to be condemned as a liar who says what is false, believing it to be
true, because such an one does not consciously deceive, but rather is himself
deceived. And, on the same principle, a
man is not to be accused of lying, though he may sometimes be open to the
charge of rashness, if through carelessness he takes up what is false and holds
it as true; but, on the other hand, the
man who says what is true, believing it to be false, is, so far as his own
consciousness is concerned, a liar. For
in saying what he does not believe, he says what to his own conscience is
false, even though it should in fact be true;
nor is the man in any sense free from lying who with his mouth speaks
the truth without knowing it, but in his heart wills to tell a lie. And, therefore, not looking at the matter
spoken of, but solely at the intention of the speaker, the man who unwittingly
says what is false, thinking all the time that it is true, is a better man than
the one who unwittingly says what is true, but in his conscience intends to
deceive. For the former does not think
one thing and say another; but the
latter, though his statements may be true in fact, has one thought in his heart
and another on his lips: and that is the
very essence of lying. But when we come
to consider truth and falsehood in respect to the subjects spoken of, the point
on which one deceives or is deceived becomes a matter of the utmost
importance. For although, as far as a
man’s own conscience is concerned, it is a greater evil to deceive than to be
deceived, nevertheless it is a far less evil to tell a lie in regard to matters
that do not relate to religion, than to be led into error in regard to matters
the knowledge and belief of which are essential to the right worship of
God. To illustrate this by
example: suppose that one man should
say of some one who is dead that he is still alive, knowing this to be
untrue; and that another man should,
being deceived, believe that Christ shall at the end of some time (make the
time as long as you please) die; would
it not be incomparably better to lie like the former, than to be deceived like
the latter? and would it not be a much
less evil to lead some man into the former error, than to be led by any man
into the latter?
In
some things, then, it is a great evil to be deceived; in some it is a small evil;
in some no evil at all; and in
some it is an actual advantage. It is to
his grievous injury that a man is deceived when he does not believe what leads
to eternal life, or believes what leads to eternal death. It is a small evil for a man to be deceived,
when, by taking falsehood for truth, he brings upon himself temporal annoyances; for the patience of the believer will turn
even these to a good use, as when, for example, taking a bad man for a good, he
receives injury from him. But one who
believes a bad man to be good, and yet suffers no injury, is nothing the worse
for being deceived, nor does he fall under the prophetic denunciation: “Woe to those who call evil good!” For we
are to understand that this is spoken not about evil men, but about the things
that make men evil. Hence the man who
calls adultery good, falls justly under that prophetic denunciation. But the man who calls the adulterer good,
thinking him to be chaste, and not knowing him to be an adulterer, falls into
no error in regard to the nature of good and evil, but only makes a mistake as
to the secrets of human conduct. He
calls the man good on the ground of believing him to be what is undoubtedly
good; he calls the adulterer evil, and
the pure man good; and he calls this
man good, not knowing him to be an adulterer, but believing him to be
pure. Further, if by making a mistake
one escape death, as I have said above once happened to me, one even derives
some advantage from one’s mistake. But
when I assert that in certain cases a man may be deceived without any injury to
himself, or even with some advantage to himself, I do not mean that the mistake
in itself is no evil, or is in any sense a good; I refer only to the evil that is avoided, or the advantage that
is gained, through making the mistake.
For the mistake, considered in itself, is an evil: a great evil if it concern a great matter, a
small evil if it concern a small matter, but yet always an evil. For who that is of sound mind can deny that
it is an evil to receive what is false as if it were true, and to reject what
is true as if it were false, or to hold what is uncertain as certain, and what
is certain as uncertain? But it is one
thing to think a man good when he is really bad, which is a mistake; it is another thing to suffer no ulterior
injury in consequence of the mistake, supposing that the bad man whom we think
good inflicts no damage upon us. In the
same way, it is one thing to think that we are on the right road when we are
not; it is another thing when this
mistake of ours, which is an evil, leads to some good, such as saving us from
an ambush of wicked men.
I am
not sure whether mistakes such as the following—when one forms a good opinion
of a bad man, not knowing what sort of man he is; or when, instead of the ordinary perceptions through the bodily
senses, other appearances of a similar kind present themselves, which we
perceive in the spirit, but think we perceive in the body, or perceive in the
body, but think we perceive in the spirit (such a mistake as the Apostle Peter
made when the angel suddenly freed him from his chains and imprisonment, and he
thought he saw a vision; or when, in
the case of sensible objects themselves, we mistake rough for smooth, or bitter
for sweet, or think that putrid matter has a good smell; or when we mistake the passing of a carriage
for thunder; or mistake one man for
another, the two being very much alike, as often happens in the case of twins
(hence our great poet calls it “a mistake pleasing to parents”—whether these,
and other mistakes of this kind, ought to be called sins. Nor do I now undertake to solve a very
knotty question, which perplexed those very acute thinkers, the Academic
philosophers: whether a wise man ought
to give his assent to anything, seeing that he may fall into error by assenting
to falsehood: for all things, as they
assert, are either unknown or uncertain.
Now I wrote three volumes shortly after my conversion, to remove out of
my way the objections which lie, as it were, on the very threshold of
faith. And assuredly it was necessary
at the very outset to remove this utter despair of reaching truth, which seems
to be strengthened by the arguments of these philosophers. Now in their eyes every error is regarded as
a sin, and they think that error can only be avoided by entirely suspending
belief. For they say that the man who
assents to what is uncertain falls into error;
and they strive by the most acute, but most audacious arguments, to show
that, even though a man’s opinion should by chance be true, yet that there is
no certainty of its truth, owing to the impossibility of distinguishing truth
from falsehood. But with us, “the just
shall live by faith.” Now, if assent be
taken away, faith goes too; for without
assent there can be no belief. And
there are truths, whether we know them or not, which must be believed if we
would attain to a happy life, that is, to eternal life. But I am not sure whether one ought to argue
with men who not only do not know that there is an eternal life before them,
but do not know whether they are living at the present moment; nay, say that they do not know what it is
impossible they can be ignorant of. For
it is impossible that any one should be ignorant that he is alive, seeing that
if he be not alive it is impossible for him to be ignorant; for not knowledge merely, but ignorance too,
can be an attribute only of the living.
But, forsooth, they think that by not acknowledging that they are alive
they avoid error, when even their very error proves that they are alive, since
one who is not alive cannot err. As,
then, it is not only true, but certain, that we are alive, so there are many
other things both true and certain; and
God forbid that it should ever be called wisdom, and not the height of folly,
to refuse assent to these.
But
as to those matters in regard to which our belief or disbelief, and indeed
their truth or supposed truth or falsity, are of no importance whatever, so far
as attaining the kingdom of God is concerned:
to make a mistake in such matters is not to be looked on as a sin, or at
least as a very small and trifling sin.
In short, a mistake in matters of this kind, whatever its nature and
magnitude, does not relate to the way of approach to God, which is the faith of
Christ that “worketh by love.” For the
“mistake pleasing to parents” in the case of the twin children was no deviation
from this way; nor did the Apostle
Peter deviate from this way, when, thinking that he saw a vision, he so mistook
one thing for another, that, till the angel who delivered him had departed from
him, he did not distinguish the real objects among which he was moving from the
visionary objects of a dream; nor did
the patriarch Jacob deviate from this way, when he believed that his son, who
was really alive, had been slain by a beast.
In
the case of these and other false impressions of the same kind, we are indeed
deceived, but our faith in God remains secure.
We go astray, but we do not leave the way that leads us to Him. But yet these errors, though they are not
sinful, are to be reckoned among the evils of this life which is so far made
subject to vanity, that we receive what is false as if it were true, reject
what is true as if it were false, and cling to what is uncertain as if it were
certain. And although they do not
trench upon that true and certain faith through which we reach eternal
blessedness, yet they have much to do with that misery in which we are now
living. And assuredly, if we were now
in the enjoyment of the true and perfect happiness that lies before us, we
should not be subject to any deception through any sense, whether of body or of
mind.
But
every lie must be called a sin, because not only when a man knows the truth,
but even when, as a man may be, he is mistaken and deceived, it is his duty to
say what he thinks in his heart, whether it be true, or whether he only think
it to be true. But every liar says the
opposite of what he thinks in his heart, with purpose to deceive. Now it is evident that speech was given to
man, not that men might therewith deceive one another, but that one man might
make known his thoughts to another. To
use speech, then, for the purpose of deception, and not for its appointed end,
is a sin. Nor are we to suppose that
there is any lie that is not a sin, because it is sometimes possible, by
telling a lie, to do service to another.
For it is possible to do this by theft also, as when we steal from a
rich man who never feels the loss, to give to a poor man who is sensibly
benefited by what he gets. And the same
can be said of adultery also, when, for instance, some woman appears likely to
die of love unless we consent to her wishes, while if she lived she might
purify herself by repentance; but yet
no one will assert that on this account such an adultery is not a sin. And if we justly place so high a value upon
chastity, what offense have we taken at truth, that, while no prospect of
advantage to another will lead us to violate the former by adultery, we should
be ready to violate the latter by lying?
It cannot be denied that they have attained a very high standard of
goodness who never lie except to save a man from injury; but in the case of men who have reached this
standard, it is not the deceit, but their good intention, that is justly
praised, and sometimes even rewarded.
It is quite enough that the deception should be pardoned, without its
being made an object of laudation, especially among the heirs of the new
covenant, to whom it is said: “Let your
communication be, Yea, yea; Nay,
nay: for whatsoever is more than these
cometh of evil.” And it is on account
of this evil, which never ceases to creep in while we retain this mortal
vesture, that the co-heirs of Christ themselves say, “Forgive us our
debts.”
As
it is right that we should know the causes of good and evil, so much of them at
least as will suffice for the way that leads us to the kingdom, where there
will be life without the shadow of death, truth without any alloy of error, and
happiness unbroken by any sorrow, I have discussed these subjects with the
brevity which my limited space demanded.
And I think there cannot now be any doubt, that the only cause of any
good that we enjoy is the goodness of God, and that the only cause of evil is
the failing away from the unchangeable good of a being made good but
changeable, first in the case of an angel, and afterwards in the case of
man.
This
is the first evil that befell the intelligent creation—that is, its first
privation of good. Following upon this
crept in, and now even in opposition to man’s will, ignorance of duty, and lust
after what is hurtful: and these
brought in their train error and suffering, which, when they are felt to be
imminent, produce that shrinking of the mind which is called fear. Further, when the mind attains the objects
of its desire, however hurtful or empty they may be, error prevents it from
perceiving their true nature, or its perceptions are overborne by a diseased
appetite, and so it is puffed up with a foolish joy. From these fountains of evil, which spring out of defect rather
than superfluity, flows every form of misery that besets a rational
nature.
And
yet such a nature, in the midst of all its evils, could not lose the craving
after happiness. Now the evils I have
mentioned are common to all who for their wickedness have been justly condemned
by God, whether they be men or angels.
But there is one form of punishment peculiar to man—the death of the
body. God had threatened him with this
punishment of death if he should sin, leaving him indeed to the freedom of his
own will, but yet commanding his obedience under pain of death; and He placed him amid the happiness of
Eden, as it were in a protected nook of life, with the intention that, if he
preserved his righteousness, he should thence ascend to a better place.
Thence,
after his sin, he was driven into exile, and by his sin the whole race of which
he was the root was corrupted in him, and thereby subjected to the penalty of
death. And so it happens that all
descended from him, and from the woman who had led him into sin, and was
condemned at the same time with him—being the offspring of carnal lust on which
the same punishment of disobedience was visited—were tainted with the original
sin, and were by it drawn through divers errors and sufferings into that last
and endless punishment which they suffer in common with the fallen angels,
their corrupters and masters, and the partakers of their doom. And thus “by one man sin entered into the
world, and death by sin; and so death
passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.” By “the world” the apostle, of course, means in this place the
whole human race.
Thus,
then, matters stood. The whole mass of
the human race was under condemnation, was lying steeped and wallowing in
misery, and was being tossed from one form of evil to another, and, having
joined the faction of the fallen angels, was paying the well-merited penalty of
that impious rebellion. For whatever
the wicked freely do through blind and unbridled lust, and whatever they suffer
against their will in the way of open punishment, this all evidently pertains
to the just wrath of God. But the
goodness of the Creator never fails either to supply life and vital power to
the wicked angels (without which their existence would soon come to an end); or, in the case of mankind, who spring from
a condemned and corrupt stock, to impart form and life to their seed, to
fashion their members, and through the various seasons of their life, and in
the different parts of the earth, to quicken their senses, and bestow upon them
the nourishment they need. For He judged
it better to bring good out of evil, than not to permit any evil to exist. And if He had determined that in the
case. of men, as in the case of the
fallen angels, there should be no restoration to happiness, would it not have
been quite just, that the being who rebelled against God, who in the abuse of
his freedom spurned and transgressed the command of his Creator when he could
so easily have kept it, who defaced in himself the image of his Creator by
stubbornly turning away from His light, who by an evil use of his free-will
broke away from his wholesome bondage to the Creator’s laws—would it not have
been just that such a being should have been wholly and to all eternity
deserted by God, and left to suffer the everlasting punishment he had so richly
earned? Certainly so God would have
done, had He been only just and not also merciful, and had He not designed that
His unmerited mercy should shine forth the more brightly in contrast with the
unworthiness of its objects.
Whilst
some of the angels, then, in their pride and impiety rebelled against God, and
were cast down from their heavenly abode into the lowest darkness, the
remaining number dwelt with God in eternal and unchanging purity and
happiness. For all were not sprung from
one angel who had fallen and been condemned, so that they were not all, like
men, involved by one original sin in the bonds of an inherited guilt, and so
made subject to the penalty which one had incurred; but when he, who afterwards became the devil, was with his
associates in crime exalted in pride, and by that very exaltation was with them
cast down, the rest remained steadfast in piety and obedience to their Lord,
and obtained, what before they had not enjoyed, a sure and certain knowledge of
their eternal safety, and freedom from the possibility of falling.
And
so it pleased God, the Creator and Governor of the universe, that, since the whole
body of the angels had not fallen into rebellion, the part of them which had
fallen should remain in perdition eternally, and that the other part, which had
in the rebellion remained steadfastly loyal, should rejoice in the sure and
certain knowledge of their eternal happiness;
but that, on the other hand, mankind, who constituted the remainder of
the intelligent creation, having perished without exception under sin, both
original and actual, and the consequent punishments, should be in part restored,
and should fill up the gap which the rebellion and fall of the devils had left
in the company of the angels. For this
is the promise to the saints, that at the resurrection they shall be equal to
the angels of God. And thus the
Jerusalem which is above, which is the mother of us all, the city of God, shall
not be spoiled of any of the number of her citizens, shall perhaps reign over
even a more abundant population. We do
not know the number either of the saints or of the devils; but we know that the children of the holy
mother who was called barren on earth shall succeed to the place of the fallen
angels, and shall dwell for ever in that peaceful abode from which they
fell. But the number of the citizens,
whether as it now is or as it shall be, is present to the thoughts of the great
Creator, who calls those things which are not as though they were, and ordereth
all things in measure, and number, and weight.
But
this part of the human race to which God has promised pardon and a share in His
eternal kingdom, can they be restored through the merit of their own
works? God forbid. For what good work can a lost man perform,
except so far as he has been delivered from perdition? Can they do anything by the free
determination of their own will? Again
I say, God forbid. For it was by the
evil use of his free-will that man destroyed both it and himself. For, as a man who kills himself must, of
course, be alive when he kills himself, but after he has killed himself ceases
to live, and cannot restore himself to life;
so, when man by his own free-will sinned, then sin being victorious over
him, the freedom of his will was lost.
“For of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in
bondage.” This is the judgment of the
Apostle Peter. And as it is certainly
true, what kind of liberty, I ask, can the bond-slave possess, except when it
pleases him to sin? For he is freely in
bondage who does with pleasure the will of his master. Accordingly, he who is the servant of sin is
free to sin. And hence he will not be
free to do right, until, being freed from sin, he shall begin to be the servant
of righteousness. And this is true
liberty, for he has pleasure in the righteous deed; and it is at the same time a holy bondage, for he is obedient to
the will of God. But whence comes this
liberty to do right to the man who is in bondage and sold under sin, except he
be redeemed by Him who has said, “If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be
free indeed?” And before this redemption is wrought in a man, when he is not
yet free to do what is right, how can he talk of the freedom of his will and
his good works, except he be inflated by that foolish pride of boasting which
the apostle restrains when he says, “By grace are ye saved, through
faith.”
And
lest men should arrogate to themselves the merit of their own faith at least,
not understanding that this too is the gift of God, this same apostle, who says
in another place that he had “obtained mercy of the Lord to be faithful,” here
also adds: “and that not of
yourselves; it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast.” And test it should be thought that good
works will be wanting in those who believe, he adds further: “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ
Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in
them.” We shall be made truly free,
then, when God fashions us, that is, forms and creases us anew, not as men—for
He has done that already—but as good men, which His grace is now doing, that we
may be a new creation in Christ Jesus, according as it is said: “Create in me a clean heart, O God.” For God had already created his heart, so
far as the physical structure of the human heart is concerned; but the psalmist prays for the renewal of
the life which was still lingering in his heart.
And
further, should any one be inclined to boast, not indeed of his works, but of
the freedom of his will, as if the first merit belonged to him, this very
liberty of good action being given to him as a reward he had earned, let him
listen to this same preacher of grace, when he says: “For it is God which worketh in you, both to will and to do of
His own good pleasure;” and in another place:
“So, then, it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but
of God that showeth mercy.” Now as,
undoubtedly, if a man is of the age to use his reason, he cannot believe, hope,
love, unless he will to do so, nor obtain the prize of the high calling of God
unless he voluntarily run for it; in
what sense is it “not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God
that showeth mercy,” except that, as it is written, “the preparation of the
heart is from the Lord?” Otherwise, if it is said, “It is not of him that
willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy,” because it is
of both, that is, both of the will of man and of the mercy of God, so that we
are to understand the saying, “It is not of him that willeth, nor of him that
runneth, but of God that showeth mercy,” as if it meant the will of man alone
is not sufficient, if the mercy of God go not with it—then it will follow that
the mercy of God alone is not sufficient, if the will of man go not with
it; and therefore, if we may rightly
say, “it is not of man that willeth, but of God that showeth mercy,” because
the will of man by itself is not enough, why may we not also rightly put it in
the converse way: “It is not of God
that showeth mercy, but of man that willeth,” because the mercy of God by
itself does not suffice? Surely, if no
Christian will dare to say this, “It is not of God that showeth mercy, but of
man that willeth,” lest he should openly contradict the apostle, it follows
that the true interpretation of the saying, “It is not of him that willeth, nor
of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy,” is that the whole work
belongs to God, who both makes the will of man righteous, and thus prepares it
for assistance, and assists it when it is prepared. For the man’s righteousness of will precedes many of God’s gifts,
but not all; and it must itself be
included among those which it does not precede. We read in Holy Scripture, both that God’s mercy “shall meet me,”
and that His mercy “shall follow me.”
It goes before the unwilling to make him willing; it follows the willing to make his will
effectual. Why are we taught to pray
for our enemies, who are plainly unwilling to lead a holy life, unless that God
may work willingness in them? And why
are we ourselves taught to ask that may receive, unless that He who has created
in us the wish, may Himself satisfy the wish We pray, then, for our enemies,
that the mercy of God may prevent them, as it has prevented us: we pray for ourselves that His mercy may
follow us.
And so
the human race was lying under a just condemnation, and all men were the
children of wrath. Of which wrath it is
written: “All our days are passed away
in Thy wrath; we spend our years as a
tale that is told.” Of which wrath also
Job says: “Man that is born of a woman
is of few days, and full of trouble.”
Of which wrath also the Lord Jesus says: “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not
see life; but the wrath of God abideth
on him.” He does not say it will come,
but it “abideth on him.” For every man
is born with it; wherefore the apostle
says: “We were by nature the children
of wrath, even as others.” Now, as men
were lying under this wrath by reason of their original sin, and as this original
sin was the more heavy and deadly in proportion to the number and magnitude of
the actual sins which were added to it, there was need for a Mediator, that is,
for a reconciler, who, by the offering of one sacrifice, of which all the
sacrifices of the law and the prophets were types, should take away this
wrath. Wherefore the apostle says: “For if, when we were enemies, we were
reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we
shall be saved by His life.” Now when
God is said to be angry, we do not attribute to Him such a disturbed feeling as
exists in the mind of an angry man; but
we call His just displeasure against sin by the name “anger,” a word
transferred by analogy from human emotions.
But our being reconciled to God through a Mediator, and receiving the
Holy Spirit, so that we who were enemies are made sons (“For as many as are led
by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God” : this is the grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Now
of this Mediator it would occupy too much space to say anything at all worthy
of Him; and, indeed, to say what is
worthy of Him is not in the power of man.
For who will explain in consistent words this single statement, that
“the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us,” so that we may believe on the
only Son of God the Father Almighty, born of the Holy Ghost and the Virgin Mary
The meaning of the Word being made flesh, is not that the divine nature was
changed into flesh, but that the divine nature assumed our flesh. And by “flesh” we are here to understand
“man,” the part being put for the whole, as when it is said: “By the deeds of the law shall no flesh be
justified,” that is, no man. For we
must believe that no part was wanting in that human nature which He put on,
save that it was a nature wholly free from every taint of sin—not such a nature
as is conceived between the two sexes through carnal lust, which is born in
sin, and whose guilt is washed away in regeneration; but such as it behoved a virgin to bring forth, when the mother’s
faith, not her lust, was the condition of conception. And if her virginity had been marred even in bringing Him forth,
He would not have been born of a virgin;
and it would be false (which God forbid) that He was born of the Virgin
Mary, as is believed and declared by the whole Church, which, in imitation of
His mother, daily brings forth members of His body, and yet remains a
virgin. Read, if you please, my letter
on the virginity of the holy Mary which I sent to that eminent man, whose name
I mention with respect and affection, Volusianus.
Wherefore
Christ Jesus, the Son of God, is both God and man; God before all worlds;
man in our world: God, because
the Word of God (for “the Word was God”;
and man, because in His one person the Word was joined with a body and a
rational soul. Wherefore, so far as He
is God, He and the Father are one; so
far as He is man, the Father is greater than He. For when He was the only Son of God, not by grace, but by nature,
that He might be also full of grace, He became the Son of man; and He Himself unites both natures in His
own identity, and both natures constitute one Christ; because, “being in the form of God, He thought it not robbery to
be,” what He was by nature, “equal with God.”
But He made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Himself the form of
a servant, not losing or lessening the form of God. And, accordingly, He was both made less and remained equal, being
both in one, as has been said: but He
was one of these as Word, and the other as man. As Word, He is equal with the Father; as man, less than the Father.
One Son of God, and at the same time Son of man; one Son of man, and at the same time Son of
God; not two Sons of God, God and man,
but one Son of God: God without
beginning; man with a beginning, our
Lord Jesus Christ.
Now
here the grace of God is displayed with the greatest power and clearness. For what merit had the human nature in the
man Christ earned, that it should in this unparalleled way be taken up into the
unity of the person of the only Son of God?
What goodness of will, what goodness of desire and intention, what good
works, had gone before, which made this man worthy to become one person with
God? Had He been a man previously to
this, and had He earned this unprecedented reward, that He should be thought
worthy to become God? Assuredly
nay; from the very moment that He began
to be man, He was nothing else than the Son of God, the only Son of God, the
Word who was made flesh, and therefore He was God so that just as each
individual man unites in one person a body and a rational soul, so Christ in
one person unites the Word and man. Now
wherefore was this unheard of glory conferred on human nature—a glory which, as
there was no antecedent merit, was of course wholly of grace—except that here
those who looked at the matter soberly and honestly might behold a clear
manifestation of the power of God’s free grace, and might understand that they
are justified from their sins by the same grace which made the man Christ Jesus
free from the possibility of sin? And
so the angel, when he announced to Christ’s mother the coming birth, saluted
her thus: “Hail, thou that art full of
grace;” and shortly afterwards, “Thou hast found grace with God.” Now she was said to be full of grace, and to
have found grace with God, because she was to be the mother of her Lord, nay,
of the Lord of all flesh. But, speaking
of Christ Himself, the evangelist John, after saying, “The Word was made flesh,
and dwelt among us,” adds, “and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the
only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” When he says, “The Word was made flesh,”
this is “full of grace;” when he says, “the glory of the only-begotten of the
Father,” this is “full of truth.” For
the Truth Himself, who was the only-begotten of the Father, not by grace, but
by nature, by grace took our humanity upon Him, and so united it with His own
person that He Himself became also the Son of man.
For
the same Jesus Christ who is the only-begotten, that is, the only Son of God,
our Lord, was born of the Holy Ghost and of the Virgin Mary. And we know that the Holy Spirit is the gift
of God, the gift being Himself indeed equal to the Giver. And therefore the Holy Spirit also is God,
not inferior to the Father and the Son.
The fact, therefore, that the nativity of Christ in His human nature was
by the Holy Spirit, is another clear manifestation of grace. For when the Virgin asked the angel how this
which he had announced should be, seeing she knew not a man, the angel
answered, “The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest
shall overshadow thee: therefore also
that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of
God.” And when Joseph was minded to put
her away, suspecting her of adultery, as he knew she was not with child by
himself, he was told by the angel, “Fear not to take unto thee Mary thy
wife; for that which is conceived in her
is of the Holy Ghost:” that is, what thou suspectest to be begotten of another
man is of the Holy Ghost.
Nevertheless,
are we on this account to say that the Holy Ghost is the father of the man
Christ, and that as God the Father begat the Word, so God the Holy Spirit begat
the man, and that these two natures constitute the one Christ; and that as the Word He is the Son of God
the Father, and as man the Son of God the Holy Spirit, because the Holy Spirit
as His father begat Him of the Virgin Mary?
Who will dare to say so? Nor is
it necessary to show by reasoning how many other absurdities flow from this
supposition, when it is itself so absurd that no believer’s ears can bear to
hear it. Hence, as we confess, “Our
Lord Jesus Christ, who of God is God, and as man was born of the Holy Ghost and
of the Virgin Mary, having both natures, the divine and the human, is the only
Son of God the Father Almighty, from whom proceedeth the Holy Spirit.” Now in what sense do we say that Christ was
born of the Holy Spirit, if the Holy Spirit did not beget Him? Is it that He made Him, since our Lord Jesus
Christ, though as God “all things were made by Him,” yet as man was Himself
made; as the apostle says, “who was
made of the seed of David according to the flesh?” But as that created thing
which the Virgin conceived and brought forth though it was united only to the
person of the Son, was made by the whole Trinity (for the works of the Trinity
are not separable), why should the Holy Spirit alone be mentioned as having
made it? Or is it that, when one of the
Three is mentioned as the author of any work, the whole Trinity is to be
understood as working? That is true,
and can be proved by examples. But we
need not dwell longer on this solution.
For the puzzle is, in what sense it is said, “born of the Holy Ghost,”
when He is in no sense the Son of the Holy Ghost? For though God made this world, it would not be right to say that
it is the Son of God, or that it was born of God; we would say that it was created, or made, or framed, or ordered
by Him, or whatever form of expression we can properly use. Here, then, when we make confession that
Christ was born of the Holy Ghost and of the Virgin Mary, it is difficult to
explain how it is that He is not the Son of the Holy Ghost and is the Son of
the Virgin Mary, when He was born both of Him and of her. It is clear beyond a doubt that He was not
born of the Holy Spirit as His father, in the same sense that He was born of
the Virgin as His mother.
We need
not therefore take for granted, that whatever is born of a thing is forthwith
to be declared the son of that thing.
For, to pass over the fact that a son is born of a man in a different
sense from that in which a hair or a louse is born of him, neither of these
being a son; to pass over this, I say,
as too mean an illustration for a subject of so much importance: it is certain that those who are born of
water and of the Holy Spirit cannot with propriety be called sons of the water
though they are called sons of God the Father, and of the Church their
mother. In the same way, then, He who
was born of the Holy Spirit is the Son of God the Father, not of the Holy
Spirit. For what I have said of the
hair and the other things is sufficient to show us that not everything which is
born of another can be called the son of that of which it is born, just as it
does not follow that all who are called a man’s sons were born of him, for some
sons are adopted. And some men are
called sons of hell, not as being born of hell, but as prepared for it, as the
sons of the kingdom are prepared for the kingdom.
And,
therefore, as one thing may be born of another, and yet not in such a way as to
be its son, and as not every one who is called a son was born of him whose son
he is called, it is clear that this arrangement by which Christ was born of the
Holy Spirit, but not as His son, and of the Virgin Mary as her son, is intended
as a manifestation of the grace of God.
For it was by this grace that a man, without any antecedent merit, was
at the very commencement of His existence as man, so united in one person with
the Word of God, that the very person who was Son of man was at the same time
Son of God, and the very person who was Son of God was at the same time Son of
man; and in the adoption of His human
nature into the divine, the grace itself became in a way so natural to the man,
as to leave no room for the entrance of sin.
Wherefore this grace is signified by the Holy Spirit; for He, though in His own nature God, may
also be called the gift of God. And to
explain all this sufficiently, if indeed it could be done at all, would require
a very lengthened discussion.
Begotten
and conceived, then, without any indulgence of carnal lust, and therefore
bringing with Him no original sin, and by the grace of God joined and united in
a wonderful and unspeakable way in one person with the Word, the Only-begotten
of the Father, a son by nature, not by grace, and therefore having no sin of
His own; nevertheless, on account of
the likeness of sinful flesh in which He came, He was called sin, that He might
be sacrificed to wash away sin. For,
under the Old Covenant. sacrifices for
sin were called sins. And He, of whom
all these sacrifices were types and shadows, was Himself truly made sin. Hence the apostle, after saying, “We pray
you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God,” forthwith adds: “for He hath made Him to be sin for us who
knew no sin; that we might be made the
righteousness of God in Him.” He does
not say, as some incorrect copies read, “He who knew no sin did sin for us,” as
if Christ had Himself sinned for our sakes;
but he says, “Him who knew no sin,” that is, Christ, God, to whom we are
to be reconciled, “hath made to be sin for us,” that is, hath made Him a sacrifice
for our sins, by which we might be reconciled to God. He, then, being made sin, just as we are made righteousness (our
righteousness being not our own, but God’s, not in ourselves, but in Him); He being made sin, not His own, but ours,
not in Himself, but in us, showed, by the likeness of sinful flesh in which He
was crucified, that though sin was not in Him, yet that in a certain sense He
died to sin, by dying in the flesh which was the likeness of sin; and that although He Himself had never lived
the old life of sin, yet by His resurrection He typified our new life springing
up out of the old death in sin.
And
this is the meaning of the great sacrament of baptism which is solemnized among
us, that all who attain to this grace should die to sin, as He is said to have
died to sin, because He died in the flesh, which is the likeness of sin; and rising from the font regenerate, as He
arose alive from the grave, should begin a new life in the Spirit, whatever may
be the age of the body?
For
from the infant newly born to the old man bent with age, as there is none shut
out from Baptism, so there is none who in baptism does not die to sin. But infants die only to original sin; those who are older die also to all the sins
which their evil lives have added to the sin which they brought with them.
But
even these latter are frequently said to die to sin, though undoubtedly they
die not to one sin, but to all the numerous actual sins they have committed in
thought, word, or deed: for the
singular number is often put for the plural, as when the poet says, “They fill
its belly with the armed soldier,”x though in the case here referred to there
were many soldiers concerned. And we
read in our own Scriptures: “Pray to
the Lord, that He take away the serpent from us.” He does not say serpent’s though the people were suffering from
many; and so in other cases. When, on the other hand, the original sin is
expressed in the plural number, as when we say that infants are baptized for
the remission of sins, instead of saying for the remission of sin, this is the
converse figure of speech, by which the plural number is put in place of the
singular; as in the Gospel it is said
of the death of Herod, “for they are dead which sought the young child’s life,”
instead of saying, “he is dead.” And in
Exodus: “They have made them,” Moses
says, “gods of gold,” though they had made only one calf, of which they
said: “These be thy gods, O Israel,
which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt,” —here, too, putting the plural
in place of the singular.
However,
even in that one sin, which “by one man entered into the world, and so passed
upon all men,” and on account of which infants are baptized, a number of
distinct sins may be observed, if it be analyzed as it were into its separate
elements. For there is in it pride,
because man chose to be under his own dominion, rather than under the dominion
of God; and blasphemy, because he did
not believe God; and murder, for he
brought death upon himself; and
spiritual fornication, for the purity of the human soul was corrupted by the
seducing blandishments of the serpent;
and theft, for man turned to his own use the food he had been forbidden
to touch; and avarice, for he had a
craving for more than should have been sufficient for him; and whatever other sin can be discovered on
careful reflection to be involved in this one admitted sin.
And
it is said, with much appearance of probability, that infants are involved in
the guilt of the sins not only of the first pair, but of their own immediate
parents. For that divine judgment, “I shall
visit the iniquities of the fathers upon the children,” certainly applies to
them before they come under the new covenant by regeneration. And it was this new covenant that was
prophesied of, when it was said by Ezekiel, that the sons should not bear the
iniquity of the fathers, and that it should no longer be a proverb in Israel,
“The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on
edge.” Here lies the necessity that
each man should be born again, that he might be freed from the sin in which he
was born. For the sins committed
afterwards can be cured by penitence, as we see is the case after baptism. And therefore the new birth would not have
been appointed only that the first birth was sinful, so sinful that even one
who was legitimately born in wedlock says:
“I was shapen in iniquities, and in sins did my mother conceive
me.” He did not say in iniquity, or in
sin, though he might have said so correctly;
but he preferred to say “iniquities” and “sins,” because in that one sin
which passed upon all men, and which was so great that human nature was by it
made subject to inevitable death, many sins, as I showed above, may be
discriminated; and further, because
there are other sins of the immediate parents, which though they have not the
same effect in producing a change of nature, yet subject the children to guilt
unless the divine grace and mercy interpose to rescue them.
But
about the sins of the other progenitors who intervene between Adam and a man’s
own parents, a question may very well be raised. Whether every one who is born is involved in all their
accumulated evil acts, in all their multiplied original guilt, so that the
later he is born, so much the worse is his condition; or whether God threatens to visit the iniquity of the fathers
upon the children unto the third and fourth generations, because in His mercy
He does not extend His wrath against the sins of the progenitors further than
that, lest those who do not obtain the grace of regeneration might be crushed
down under too heavy a burden if they were compelled to bear as original guilt
all the sins of all their progenitors from the very beginning of the human
race, and to pay the penalty due to them;
or whether any other solution of this great question may or may not be
found in Scripture by a more diligent search and a more careful interpretation,
I dare not rashly affirm.
Nevertheless,
that one sin, admitted into a place where such perfect happiness reigned, was
of so heinous a character, that in one man the whole human race was originally,
and as one may say, radically, condemned;
and it cannot be pardoned and blotted out except through the one
Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who only has had power to
be so born as not to need a second birth.
Now,
those who were baptized in the baptism of John, by whom Christ was Himself
baptized, were not regenerated; but
they were prepared through the ministry of His forerunner, who cried, “Prepare ye
the way of the Lord,” for Him in whom only they could be regenerated. For His baptism is not with water only, as
was that of John, but with the Holy Ghost also; so that whoever believes in Christ is regenerated by that Spirit,
of whom Christ being generated, He did not need regeneration. Whence that announcement of the Father which
was heard after His baptism, “This day have I begotten Thee,” referred not to
that one day of time on which He was baptized, but to the one day of an
unchangeable eternity, so as to show that this man was one in person with the
Only-begotten. For when a day neither
begins with the close of yesterday, nor ends with the beginning of to-morrow,
it is an eternal to-day.
Therefore
He asked to be baptized in water by John, not that any iniquity of His might be
washed away, but that He might manifest the depth of His humility. For baptism found in Him nothing to wash
away, as death found in Him nothing to punish;
so that it was in the strictest justice, and not by the mere violence of
power, that the devil was crushed and conquered: for, as he had most unjustly put Christ to death, though there
was no sin in Him to deserve death, it was most just that through Christ he
should lose his hold of those who by sin were justly subject to the bondage in
which he held them.
Both
of these, then, that is, both baptism and death, were submitted to by Him, not
through a pitiable necessity, but of His own free pity for us, and as part of
an arrangement by which, as one man brought sin into the world, that is, upon
the whole human race, so one man was to take away the sin of the world.
With
this difference: the first man brought
one sin into the world, but this man took away not only that one sin, but all
that He found added to it. Hence the
apostle says:
“And
not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift: for the judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is
of many offenses unto justification.”
For it is evident that the one sin which we bring with us by nature
would, even if it stood alone, bring us under condemnation; but the free gift justifies man from many
offenses: for each man, in addition to
the one sin which, in common with all his kind, he brings with him by nature,
has committed many sins that are strictly his own.
But
what he says a little after, “Therefore, as by the offense of one judgment came
upon all men to condemnation; even so
by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification
of life,” shows clearly enough that there is no one born of Adam but is subject
to condemnation, and that no one, unless he be new born in Christ, is freed
from condemnation.
And
after he has said as much about the condemnation through one man, and the free
gift through one man, as he deemed sufficient for that part of his epistle, the
apostle goes on to speak of the great mystery of holy baptism in the cross of
Christ, and to clearly explain to us that baptism in Christ is nothing else
than a similitude of the death of Christ, and that the death of Christ on the
cross is nothing but a similitude of the pardon of sin: so that just as real as is His death, so
real is the remission of our sins; and
just as real as is His resurrection, so real is our justification. He says:
“What shall we say, then? Shall
we continue in sin, that grace may abound?” For he had said previously, “But
where sin, abounded, grace did much more abound.” And therefore he proposes to himself the question, whether it
would be right to continue in sin for the sake of the consequent abounding
grace. But he answers, “God forbid;”
and adds, “How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?” Then,
to show that we are dead to sin, “Know ye not,” he says, “that so many of us as
were baptized into Jesus Christ, were baptized into His death?” If, then, the
fact that we were baptized into the death of Christ proves that we are dead to
sin, it follows that even infants who are baptized into Christ die to sin,
being baptized into His death. For
there is no exception made: “So many of
us as were baptized into Jesus Christ, were baptized into His death.” And this is said to prove that we are dead
to sin. Now, to what sin do infants die
in their regeneration but that sin which they bring with them at birth? And therefore to these also applies what
follows: “Therefore we are buried with
Him by baptism into death; that, like
as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we
also should walk in newness of life.
For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall
be also in the likeness of His resurrection:
knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of
sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin. Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe
that we shall also live with Him:
knowing that Christ, being raised from the dead, dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over Him. For in that He died, He died unto sin
once; but in that He liveth, He liveth
unto God. Likewise reckon ye also
yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ
our Lord.” Now he had commenced with
proving that we must not continue in sin that grace may abound, and had said: “How shall we that are dead to sin live any
longer therein?” And to show that we are dead to sin, he added: “Know ye not, that so many of us as were
baptized into Jesus Christ, were baptized into His death?” And so he concludes
this whole passage just as tie began it.
For he has brought in the death of Christ in such a way as to imply that
Christ Himself also died to sin. To
what sin did He die if not to the flesh, in which there was not sin, but the
likeness of sin, and which was therefore called by the name of sin? To those who are baptized into the death of
Christ, then—and this class includes not adults only, hut infants as well—he
says: “Likewise reckon ye also
yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ
our Lord.”
All
the events, then, of Christ’s crucifixion, of His burial, of His resurrection
the third day, of His ascension into heaven, of His sitting down at the right
hand of the Father, were So ordered, that the life which the Christian leads
here might be modelled upon them, not merely in a mystical sense, but in
reality. For in reference to His
crucifixion it is said: “They that are
Christ’s have crucified the flesh, with the affections and lusts.” And in reference to His burial: “We are buried with Him by baptism into
death.” In reference to His
resurrection: “That, like as Christ was
raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk
in newness of life. And in reference to
His ascension into heaven and sitting down at the right hand of the
Father: “If ye then be risen with Christ,
seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on
things on the earth. For ye are dead,
and your life is hid with Christ in God.”
But
what we believe as to Christ’s action in the future, when He shall come from
heaven to judge the quick and the dead, has no bearing upon the life which we
now lead here; for it forms no part of
what He did upon earth, but is part of what He shall do at the end of the
world. And it is to this that the
apostle refers in what immediately follows the passage quoted above: “When Christ, who is our life, shall appear,
then shall ye also appear with Him in glory.”
Now
the expression, “to judge the quick and the dead,” may be interpreted in two
ways: either we may understand by the
“quick” those who at His advent shall not yet have died, but whom He shall find
alive in the flesh, and by the “dead” those who have departed from the body, or
who shall have departed before His coming;
or we may understand the “quick” to mean the righteous, and the “dead”
the unrighteous; for the righteous
shall be judged as well as others. Now
the judgment of God is sometimes taken in a bad sense, as, for example, “They
that have done evil unto the resurrection of judgment;” sometimes in a good
sense, as, “Save me, O God, by Thy name, and judge me by Thy strength.” This is easily understood When we consider
that it is the judgment of God which separates the good from the evil, and sets
the good at His right hand, that they may be delivered from evil, and not
destroyed with the wicked; and it is
for this reason that the Psalmist cried, “Judge me, O God,” and then added, as
if in explanation, “and distinguish my cause from that of an ungodly
nation.”
And
now, having spoken of Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, our Lord, with the
brevity suitable to a confession of our faith, we go on to say that we believe
also in the Holy Ghost—thus completing the Trinity which constitutes the
Godhead. Then we mention the Holy
Church. And thus we are made to
understand that the intelligent creation, which constitutes the free Jerusalem,
ought to be subordinate in the order of speech to the Creator, the Supreme
Trinity: for all that is said of the
man Christ Jesus has reference, of course, to the unity of the person of the
Only-begotten.
Therefore
the true order of the Creed demanded that the Church should be made subordinate
to the Trinity, as the house to Him who dwells in it, the temple to God who
occupies it, and the city to its builder.
And we are here to understand the whole Church, not that part of it only
which wanders as a stranger on the earth, praising the name of God from the
rising of the sun to the going down of the same, and singing a new song of
deliverance from its old captivity; but
that part also which has always from its creation remained steadfast to God in
heaven, and has never experienced the misery consequent upon a fall. This part is made up of the holy angels, who
enjoy uninterrupted happiness; and (as
it is bound to do) it renders assistance to the part which is still wandering
among strangers: for these two parts
shall be one in the fellowship of eternity, and now they are one in the bonds
of love, the whole having been ordained for the worship of the one God. Wherefore, neither the whole Church, nor any
part of it, has any desire to be worshipped instead of God, nor to be God to
any one who belongs to the temple of God—that temple which is built up of the
saints who were created by the uncreated God.
And therefore the Holy Spirit, if a creature, could not be the Creator,
but would be a part of the intelligent creation. He would simply be the highest creature, and therefore would not
be mentioned in the Creed before the Church;
for He Himself would belong to the Church. to that part of it which is in the heavens. And He would not have a temple, for He
Himself would be part of a temple. Now
He has a temple, of which the apostle says:
“Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in
you, which ye have of God?” Of which body he says in another place: “Know ye not that your bodies are the
members of Christ?” How, then, is He not God, seeing that He has a temple? and how can He be less than Christ, whose
members are His temple? Nor has He one
temple, and God another, seeing that the same apostle says: “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God?”
and adds, as proof of this, “and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you.” God, then, dwells in His temple: not the Holy Spirit only, but the Father
also, and the Son, who says of His own body, through which He was made Head of
the Church upon earth (“that in all things He might have the pre-eminence):”
“Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The temple of God, then, that is, of the
Supreme Trinity as a whole, is the Holy Church, embracing in its full extent
both heaven and earth.
But
of that part of the Church which is in heaven what can we say, except that no
wicked one is found in it, and that no one has fallen from it, or shall ever
fall from it, since the time that ‘God spared not the angels that sinned,” as
the Apostle Peter writes, “but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into
chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment?”
Now,
what the organization is of that supremely happy society in heaven: what the differences of rank are, which
explain the fact that while all are called by the general name angels, as we
read in the Epistle to the Hebrews, “but to which of the angels said God at any
time, Sit on my right hand?” (this form of expression being evidently designed
to embrace all the angels without exception), we yet find that there are some
called archangels; and whether the
archangels are the same as those called hosts, so that the expression, “Praise
ye Him, all His angels: praise ye Him,
all His hosts,” is the same as if it had been said, “Praise ye Him, all His
angels: praise ye Him, all His archangels;”
and what are the various significations of those four names under which the
apostle seems to embrace the whole heavenly company without exception, “whether
they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers:” —let those who
are able answer these questions, if they can also prove their answers to be
true; but as for me, I confess my
ignorance. I am not even certain upon
this point: whether the sun, and the
moon, and all the stars, do not form part of this same society, though many
consider them merely luminous bodies, without either sensation or
intelligence.
Further,
who will tell with what sort of bodies it was that the angels appeared to men,
making themselves not only visible, but tangible; and again, how it is that, not through material bodies, but by
spiritual power, they present visions not to the bodily eyes, but to the
spiritual eyes of the mind, or speak something not into the ear from without,
but from within the soul of the man, they themselves being stationed there too,
as it is written in the prophet, “And the angel that spake in me said unto me”
(he does not say, “that spake to me,” but “that spake in me”); or appear to men in sleep, and make
communications through dreams, as we read in the Gospel, “Behold, the angel of
the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying”? For these methods of communication seem to imply that the angels
have not tangible bodies, and make it a very difficult question to solve how
the patriarchs washed their feet, and how it was that Jacob wrestled with the
angel in a way so unmistakeably material.
To ask questions like these, and to make such guesses as we can at the
answers, is a useful exercise for the intellect, if the discussion be kept
within proper bounds, and if we avoid the error of supposing ourselves to know
what we do not know. For what is the
necessity for affirming, or denying, or defining with accuracy on these
subjects, and others like them, when we may without blame be entirely ignorant
of them?
It
is more necessary to use all our powers of discrimination and judgment when Satan
transforms himself into an angel of light, lest by his wiles he should lead us
astray into hurtful courses. For, while
he only deceives the bodily senses, and does not pervert the mind from that
true and sound judgment which enables a man to lead a life of faith, there is
no danger to religion; or if, reigning
himself to be good, he does or says the things that befit good angels, and we
believe him to be good, the error is not one that is hurtful or dangerous to
Christian faith. But when, through these
means, which are alien to his nature, he goes on to lead us into courses of his
own, then great watchfulness is necessary to detect, and refuse to follow,
him. But how many men are fit to evade
all his deadly wiles, unless God restrains and watches over them? The very difficulty of the matter, however,
is useful in this respect, that it prevents men from trusting in themselves or
in one another, and leads all to place their confidence in God alone. And certainly no pious man can doubt that
this is most expedient for us.
This
part of the Church, then, which is made up of the holy angels and the hosts of
God, shall become known to us in its true nature, when, at the end of the
world, we shall be united with it in the common possession of everlasting
happiness. But the other part, which,
separated from it, wanders as a stranger on the earth, is better known to us,
both because we belong to it, and because it is composed of men, and we too are
men. This section of the Church has
been redeemed from all sin by the blood of a Mediator who had no sin, and its
song is: “If God be for us, who can be
against us? He that spared not His own
Son, but delivered Him up for us all.”
Now it was not for the angels that Christ died. Yet what was done for the redemption of man
through His death was in a sense done for the angels, because the enmity which
sin had put between men and the holy angels is removed, and friendship is
restored between them, and by the redemption of man the gaps which the great
apostasy left in the angelic host are filled up.
And,
of course, the holy angels, taught by God, in the eternal contemplation of
whose truth their happiness consists, know how great a number of the human race
are to supplement their ranks, and fill up the full tale of their citizenship. Wherefore the apostle says, that “all things
are gathered together in one in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are
on earth.” The things which are in heaven
are gathered together when what was lost therefrom in the fall of the angels is
restored from among men; and the things
which are on earth are gathered together, when those who are predestined to
eternal life are redeemed from their old corruption. And thus, through that single sacrifice in which the Mediator was
offered up, the one sacrifice of which the many victims under the law were
types, heavenly things are brought into peace with earthly things, and earthly
things with heavenly. Wherefore, as the
same apostle says: “For it pleased the
Father that in Him should all fullness dwell:
and, having made peace through the blood of His cross, by Him to
reconcile all things to Himself: by
Him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven.”
This
peace, as Scripture saith, “passeth all understanding,” and cannot be known by
us until we have come into the full possession of it. For in what sense are heavenly things reconciled, except they be
reconciled to us, viz. by coming into
harmony with us? For in heaven there is
unbroken peace, both between all the intelligent creatures that exist there,
and between these and their Creator.
And this peace, as is said, passeth all understanding; but this, of course, means our
understanding, not that of those who always behold the face of their
Father. We now, however great may be
our human understanding, know but in part, and see through a glass darkly. But when we shall be equal unto the angels
of God then we shall see face to face, as they do; and we shall have as great peace towards them as they have
towards us, because we shall love them as much as we are loved by them. And so their peace shall be known to
us: for our own peace shall be like to
theirs, and as great as theirs, nor shall it then pass our understanding. But the peace of God, the peace which He
cherisheth towards us, shall undoubtedly pass not our understanding only, but
theirs as well. And this must be
so: for every rational creature which
is happy derives its happiness from Him;
He does not derive His from it.
And in this view it is better to interpret “all” in the passage, “The
peace of God passeth all understanding,” as admitting of no exception even in
favor of the understanding of the holy angels:
the only exception that can be made is that of God Himself. For, of course, His peace does not pass His
own understanding.
But
the angels even now are at peace with us when our sins are pardoned. Hence, in the order of the Creed, after the
mention of the Holy Church is placed the remission of sins. For it is by this that the Church on earth
stands: it is through this that what
had been lost, and was found, is saved from being lost again. For, setting aside the grace of baptism,
which is given as an antidote to original sin, so that what our birth imposes
upon us, our new birth relieves us from (this grace, however, takes away all
the actual sins also that have been committed in thought, word, and deed): setting aside, then, this great act of
favor, whence commences man’s restoration, and in which all our guilt, both
original and actual, is washed away, the rest of our life from the time that we
have the use of reason provides constant occasion for the remission of sins,
however great may be our advance in righteousness. For the sons of God, as long as they live in this body of death,
are in conflict with death. And
although it is truly said of them, “As many as are led by the Spirit of God,
they are the sons of God,” yet they are led by the Spirit of God, and as the
sons of God advance towards God under this drawback, that they are led also by
their own spirit, weighted as it is by the corruptible body; and that, as the sons of men, under the
influence of human affections, they fall back to their old level, and so sin. There is a difference, however. For although every crime is a sin, every sin
is not a crime. And so we say that the
life of holy men, as long as they remain in this mortal body, may be found
without crime; but, as the Apostle John
says, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is
not in us.”
But
even crimes themselves, however great, may be remitted in the Holy Church; and the mercy of God is never to be
despaired of by men who truly repent, each according to the measure of his
sin. And in the act of repentance,
where a crime has been committed of such a nature as to cut off the sinner from
the body of Christ, we are not to take account so much of the measure of time
as of the measure of sorrow; for a
broken and a contrite heart God doth not despise. But as the grief of one heart is frequently hid from another, and
is not made known to others by words or other signs, when it is manifest to Him
of whom it is said, “My groaning is not hid from Thee,” those who govern the
Church have rightly appointed times of penitence, that the Church in which the
sins are remitted may be satisfied; and
outside the Church sins are not remitted.
For the Church alone has received the pledge of the Holy Spirit, without
which there is no remission of sins—such, at least, as brings the pardoned to
eternal life.
Now
the pardon of sin has reference chiefly to the future judgment. For, as far as this life is concerned, the
saying of Scripture holds good: “A
heavy yoke is upon the sons of Adam, from the day that they go out of their
mother’s womb, till the day that they return to the mother of all things.” So that we see even infants, after baptism
and regeneration, suffering from the infliction of divers evils: and thus we are given to understand, that
all that is set forth in the sacraments of salvation refers rather to the hope
of future good, than to the retaining or attaining of present blessings. For many sins seem in this world to be
overlooked and visited with no punishment, whose punishment is reserved for the
future (for it is not in vain that the day when Christ shall come as Judge of
quick and dead is peculiarly named the day of judgment); just as, on the other hand, many sins are
punished in this life, which nevertheless are pardoned, and shall bring down no
punishment in the future life.
Accordingly, in reference to certain temporal punishments, which in this
life are visited upon sinners, the apostle, addressing those whose sins are
blotted out, and not reserved for the final judgment, says: “For if we would judge ourselves, we should
not be judged. But when we are judged,
we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the
world.”
It
is believed, moreover, by some, that men who do not abandon the name of Christ,
and who have been baptized in the Church by His baptism, and who have never
been cut off from the Church by any schism or heresy, though they should live
in the grossest sin and never either wash it away in penitence nor redeem it by
almsgiving, but persevere in it persistently to the last day of their lives,
shall be saved by fire; that is, that
although they shall suffer a punishment by fire, lasting for a time
proportionate to the magnitude of their crimes and misdeeds, they shall not be
punished with everlasting fire. But
those who believe this, and yet are Catholics, seem to me to be led astray by a
kind of benevolent feeling natural to humanity. For Holy Scripture, when consulted, gives a very different
answer. I have written a book on this
subject, entitled Of Faith and Works, in which, to the best of my ability, God
assisting me, I have shown from Scripture, that the faith which saves us is
that which the Apostle Paul clearly enough describes when he says: “For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision
availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but faith which worketh by love.” But if it worketh evil, and not good, then
without doubt, as the Apostle James says, “it is dead, being alone.” The same apostle says again, “What doth it profit,
my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? Can faith save him?” And further, if a
wicked man shall be saved by fire on account of his faith alone, and if this is
what the blessed Apostle Paul means when he says, “But he himself shall be
saved, yet so as by fire;” then faith without works can save a man, and what
his fellow-apostle James says must be false.
And that must be false which Paul himself says in another place: “Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor
effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous,
nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners;
shall inherit the kingdom of God.”
For if those who persevere in these wicked courses shall nevertheless be
saved on account of their faith in Christ, how can it be true that they shall
not inherit the kingdom of God?
But as
these most plain and unmistakeable declarations of the apostles cannot be
false, that obscure saying about those who build upon the foundation, Christ,
not gold, silver, and precious stones, but wood, hay, and stubble (for it is
these who, it is said, shall be saved, yet so as by fire, the merit of the
foundation saving them, must be so interpreted as not to conflict with the
plain statements quoted above. Now
wood, hay, and stubble may, without incongruity, be understood to signify such
an attachment to worldly things, however lawful these may be in themselves,
that they cannot be lost without grief of mind. And though this grief burns, yet if Christ hold the place of
foundation in the heart—that is, if nothing be preferred to Him, and if the
man, though burning with grief, is yet more willing to lose the things he loves
so much than to lose Christ—he is saved by fire. If, however, in time of temptation, he prefer to hold by temporal
and earthly things rather than by Christ, he has not Christ as his foundation; for he puts earthly things in the first
place, and in a building nothing comes before the foundation. Again, the fire of which the apostle speaks
in this place must be such a fire as both men are made to pass through, that
is, both the man who builds upon the foundation, gold, silver, precious stones,
and the man who builds wood, hay, stubble.
For he immediately adds: “The
fire shall try every man’s work, of what sort it is. If any man’s work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall
receive a reward. If any man’s work
shall be burned, he shall suffer loss;
but he himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire.” The fire then shall prove, not the work of
one of them only, but of both. Now the
trial of adversity is a kind of fire which is plainly spoken of in another
place: “The furnace proverb the
potter’s vessels: and the furnace of
adversity just men.” And this fire does
in the course of this life act exactly in the way the apostle says. If it come into contact with two believers,
one “caring for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may please the
Lord,” that is, building upon Christ the foundation, gold, silver, precious
stones; the other “caring for the
things that are of the world, how he may please his wife,” that is, building
upon the same foundation wood, hay, stubble—the work of the former is not
burned, because he has not given his love to things whose loss can cause him
grief; but the work of the latter is
burned, because things that are enjoyed with desire cannot be lost without
pain. But since, by our supposition,
even the latter prefers to lose these things rather than to lose Christ, and
since he does not desert Christ out of fear of losing them, though he is
grieved when he does lose them he is saved, but it is so as by fire; because the grief for what he loved and has
lost burns him. But it does not subvert
nor consume him; for he is protected by
his immoveable and incorruptible foundation.
And
it is not impossible that something of the same kind may take place even after
this life. It is a matter that may be
inquired into, and either ascertained or left doubtful, whether some believers
shall pass through a kind of purgatorial fire, and in proportion as they have
loved with more or less devotion the goods that perish, be less or more quickly
delivered from it. This cannot,
however, be the case of any of those of whom it is said, that they “shall not
inherit the kingdom of God,” unless after suitable repentance their sins be
forgiven them. When I say “suitable,” I
mean that they are not to be unfruitful in almsgiving; for Holy Scripture lays so much stress on
this virtue, that our Lord tells us beforehand, that He will ascribe no merit
to those on His right hand but that they abound in it, and no defect to those
on His left hand but their want of it, when He shall say to the former, “Come,
ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom,” and to the latter, “Depart from
me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire.”
We
must beware, however, lest any one should suppose that gross sins, such as are
committed by those who shall not inherit the kingdom of God, may be daily
perpetrated,and daily stoned for by almsgiving, The life must be changed for
the better; and almsgiving must be used
to propitiate God for past sins, not to purchase impunity for the commission of
such sins in the future. For He has
given no man license to sin, although in His mercy He may blot out sins that
are already committed, if we do not neglect to make proper satisfaction.
Now
the daily prayer of the believer makes satisfaction for those daily sins of a
momentary and trivial kind which are necessary incidents of this life. For he can say, “Our Father which art in
heaven,” seeing that to such a Father he is now born again of water and of the
Spirit. And this prayer certainly takes
away the very small sins of daily life.
It takes away also those which at one time made the life of the believer
very wicked, but which, now that he is changed for the better by repentance, he
has given up, provided that as truly as he says, “Forgive us our debts” (for
there is no want of debts to be forgiven), so truly does he say, “as we forgive
our debtors;” that is, provided he does what he says he does: for to forgive a man who asks for pardon, is
really to give alms.
And
on this principle of interpretation, our Lord’s saying, “Give alms of such
things as ye have, and, behold, all things are clean unto you,”, applies to
every useful act that a man does in mercy.
Not only, then, the man who gives food to the hungry, drink to the
thirsty, clothing to the naked, hospitality to the stranger, shelter to the
fugitive, who visits the sick and the imprisoned, ransoms the captive, assists
the weak, leads the blind, comforts the sorrowful, heals the sick, puts the
wanderer on the right path, gives advice to the perplexed, and supplies the
wants of the needy—not this man only, but the man who pardons the sinner also
gives alms; and the man who corrects
with blows, or restrains by any kind of discipline one over whom he has power,
and who at the same time forgives from the heart the sin by which he was
injured, or prays that it may be forgiven, is also a giver of alms, not only in
that he forgives, or prays for forgiveness for the sin, but also in that he
rebukes and corrects the sinner: for in
this, too, he shows mercy. Now much
good is bestowed upon unwilling recipients, when their advantage and not their
pleasure is consulted; and they
themselves frequently prove to be their own enemies, while their true friends
are those whom they take for their enemies, and to whom in their blindness they
return evil for good. (A Christian,
indeed, is not permitted to return evil even for evil. And thus there are many kinds of alms, by
giving of which we assist to procure the pardon of our sins.
But
none of those is greater than to forgive from the heart a sin that has been
committed against us. For it is a
comparatively small thing to wish well to, or even to do good to, a man who has
done no evil to you. It is a much
higher thing, and is the result of the most exalted goodness, to love your
enemy, and always to wish well to, and when you have the opportunity, to do
good to, the man who wishes you ill, and, when he can does you harm. This is to obey the command of God: “Love your enemies, do good to them that
hate you, and pray for them which persecute you.” But seeing that this is a frame of mind only reached by the perfect
sons of God, and that though every believer ought to strive after it, and by
prayer to God and earnest struggling with himself endeavor to bring his soul up
to this standard, yet a degree of goodness so high can hardly belong to so
great a multitude as we believe are heard when they use this petition, “Forgive
us our debts, as we forgive our debtors;” in view of all this, it cannot be
doubted that the implied undertaking is fulfilled if a man, though he has not
yet attained to loving his enemy, yet, when asked by one who has sinned against
him to forgive him his sin, does forgive him from his heart. For he certainly desires to be himself
forgiven when he prays, “as we forgive our debtors,” that is, Forgive us our
debts when we beg forgiveness, as we forgive our debtors when they beg
forgiveness from us.
Now,
he who asks forgiveness of the man against whom he has sinned, being moved by his
sin to ask forgiveness, cannot be counted an enemy in such a sense that it
should be as difficult to love him now as it was when he was engaged in active
hostility. And the man who does not
from his heart forgive him who repents of his sin, and asks forgiveness, need
not suppose that his own sins are forgiven of God. For the Truth cannot lie.
And what reader or hearer of the Gospel can have failed to notice, that
the same person who said, “I am the Truth,” taught us also this form of
prayer; and in order to impress this
particular petition deeply upon our minds, said, “For if ye forgive men their
trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if ye forgive not men their trespasses,
neither will your. Father forgive your
trespasses”? The man whom the thunder
of this warning does not awaken is not asleep, but dead; and yet so powerful is that voice, that it
can awaken even the dead.
Assuredly,
then, those who live in gross wickedness, and take no care to reform their
lives and manners, and yet amid all their crimes and vices do not cease to give
frequent alms, in vain take comfort to themselves from the saying of our
Lord: “Give alms of such things as ye
have; and, behold, all things are Clean
unto you.” For they do not understand how
far this saying reaches. But that they
may understand this, let them hear what He says. For we read in the Gospel as follows: “And as He spake, a certain Pharisee besought Him to dine with
him; and He went in, and sat down to
meat. And when the Pharisee saw it, he
marvelled that He had not first washed before dinner. And the Lord said unto him, Now do ye Pharisees make clean the
outside of the cup and the platter; but
your inward part is full of ravening and wickedness. Ye fools, did not he that made that which is without, make that which
is within also? But rather give alms of
such things as ye have; and, behold,
all things are clean unto you.” Are we
to understand this as meaning that to the Pharisees who have not the faith of
Christ all things are clean, if only they give alms in the way these men count
almsgiving, even though they have never believed in Christ, nor been born again
of water and of the Spirit? But the
fact is, that all are unclean who are not made clean by the faith of Christ,
according to the expression, “purifying their hearts by faith;” and that the
apostle says, “Unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is
defiled.” How, then, could all things
be clean to the Pharisees, even though they gave alms, if they were not
believers? And how could they be
believers if they were not willing to have faith in Christ, and to be born
again of His grace? And yet what they
heard is true: “Give alms of such
things as ye have; and, behold, all
things are clean unto you.”
For
the man who wishes to give aims as he ought, should begin with himself, and
give to himself first. For almsgiving
is a work of mercy; and most truly is
it said, “To have mercy on thy soul is pleasing to God.” And for this end are we born again, that we
should be pleasing to God, who is justly displeased with that which we brought
with us when we were born. This is our
first alms, which we give to ourselves when, through the mercy of a pitying
God, we find that we are ourselves wretched, and confess the justice of His
judgment by which we are made wretched, of which the apostle says, “The
judgment was by one to condemnation;” and praise the greatness of His love, of
which the same preacher of grace says, “God commendeth His love toward us, in
that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us:” and thus judging truly of
our own misery, and loving God with the love which He has Himself bestowed, we
lead a holy and virtuous life. But the
Pharisees, while they gave as alms the tithe of all their fruits, even the most
insignificant, passed over judgment and the love of God, and so did not
commence their alms-giving at home, and extend their pity to themselves in the
first instance. And it is in reference
to this order of love that it is said, “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” When, then, our Lord had rebuked them
because they made themselves clean on the outside, but within were full of
ravening and wickedness, He advised them, in the exercise of that charity which
each man owes to himself in the first instance, to make clean the inward
parts. “But rather,” He says, “ give
alms of such things as ye have; and,
behold, all things are clean unto you.”
Then, to show what it was that He advised, and what they took no pains
to do, and to show that He did not overlook or forget their almsgiving, “But
woe unto you, Pharisees!” He says; as
if He meant to say: I indeed advise you
to give alms which shall make all things clean unto you; “but woe unto you! for ye tithe mint, and
rue, and all manner of herbs;” as if He meant to say: I know these alms of yours, and ye need not think that I am now
admonishing you in respect of such things;
“and pass over judgment and the love of God,” an alms by which ye might
have been made clean from all inward impurity, so that even the bodies which ye
are now washing would have been clean to you.
For this is the import of all things,” both inward and outward things,
as we read in another place: “Cleanse
first that which is within, that the outside may be clean also.” But lest He might appear to despise the alms
which they were giving out of the fruits of the earth, He says: “These ought ye to have done,” referring to
judgment and the love of God, “and not to leave the other undone,” referring to
the giving of the tithes.
Those,
then, who think that they can by giving alms, however profuse, whether in money
or in kind, purchase for themselves the privilege of persisting with impunity
in their monstrous crimes and hideous vices, need not thus deceive
themselves. For not only do they commit
these sins, but they love. them so much
that they would like to go on. forever
committing them, if only they could do so with impunity. Now, he who loveth iniquity hateth his own
soul; and he who hateth his own soul is
not merciful but cruel towards it. For
in loving it according to the. world,
he hateth it according to God. But if
he desired to give alms to it which should make all things clean unto him, he
would hate it according to the world, and love it according to God. Now no one gives alms unless he receive what
he gives from one who is not in want of it.
Therefore it is said, His mercy shall meet me.”
Now,
what sins are trivial and what heinous.
is not a matter to be decided by man’s judgment, but by the judgment of
God. For it is plain that the apostles
themselves have given an indulgence in the case of certain sins: take, for example, what the Apostle Paul
says to those who are married: “Defraud
ye not one the other, except it be with consent for a time, that ye may give
yourselves to fasting and prayer: and
come together again, that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency.” Now it is possible that it might not have
been considered a sin to have intercourse with a spouse, not with a view to the
procreation of children, which is the great blessing of marriage, but for the
sake of carnal pleasure, and to save the incontinent from being led by their
weakness into the deadly sin of fornication, or adultery, or another form of
uncleanness which it is shameful even to name, and into which it is possible
that they might be drawn by lust under the temptation of Satan. It is possible, I say, that this might not
have been considered a sin, had the apostle not added: “But I speak this by permission, and not of
commandment.” Who, then, can deny that
it is a sin, when confessedly it is only by apostolic authority that permission
is granted to those who do it? Another
case of the same kind is where he says:
“Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the
unjust, and not before the saints?” And shortly afterwards: “If then ye have judgments of things-pertaining
to this life, set them to judge who are least esteemed in the Church. I speak to your shame. Is it so, that there is not a wise man among
you? no, not one that shall be able to
judge between his brethren? But brother
goeth to law with brother, and that before the unbelievers.” Now it might have been supposed in this case
that it is not a sin to have a quarrel with another, that the only sin is in
wishing to have it adjudicated upon outside the Church, had not the apostle
immediately added: “Now therefore there
is utterly a fault among you, because ye go to law with one another.” And lest any one should excuse himself by
saying that he had a just cause, and was suffering wrong, and that he only
wished the sentence of the judges to remove his wrong, the apostle immediately
anticipates such thoughts and excuses, and says: “Why do ye not rather take wrong? Why do ye not rather suffer yourselves to be defrauded?” Thus
bringing us back to our Lord’s saying, “If any man will sue thee at the law,
and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also;” and again, “Of him that taketh
away thy goods, ask them not again.”
Therefore our Lord has forbidden His followers to go to law with other
men about worldly affairs. And carrying
out this principle, the apostle here declares that to do so is “altogether a
fault.” But when, notwithstanding, he
grants his permission to have Such cases between brethren decided in the
Church, other brethren adjudicating, and only sternly forbids them to be
carried outside the Church, it is manifest that here again an indulgence is
extended to the infirmities of the weak.
It is in view, then, of these sins, and others of the same sort, and of
others again more trifling still, which consist of offenses in words and
thought (as the Apostle James confesses, “In many things we offend all” that we
need to pray every day and often to the Lord, saying, “Forgive us our debts,”
and to add in truth and sincerity, “as we forgive our debtors.”
Again,
there are some sins which would be considered very trifling, if the Scriptures
did not show that they are really very serious. For who would suppose that the man who says to his brother, “Thou
fool,” is in danger of hell-fire, did not He who is the Truth say so? To the wound, however, He immediately
applies the cure, giving a rule for reconciliation with one’s offended
brother: “Therefore, if thou bring thy
gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against
thee; leave there thy gift before the
altar, and go thy way: first be
reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.” Again, who would suppose that it was so
great a sin to observe days, and months, and times, and years, as those do who
are anxious or unwilling to begin anything on certain days, or in certain
months or years, because the vain doctrines of men lead them to think such
times lucky or unlucky, had we not the means of estimating the greatness of the
evil from the fear expressed by the apostle, who says to such men, “I am afraid
of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labor in vain”?
Add to this, that sins, however
great and detestable they may be, are looked upon as trivial, or as not sins at
all, when men get accustomed to them;
and so far does this go, that such sins are not only not concealed, but
are boasted of, and published far and wide;
and thus, as it is written, “The wicked boasteth of his heart’s desire,
and blesseth the covetous, whom the Lord abhorreth.” Iniquity of this kind is in Scripture called a cry. You have an instance in the prophet Isaiah,
in the case of the evil vineyard: “He
looked for judgment, but behold oppression;
for righteousness, but behold a cry.”
Whence also the expression in Genesis:
“The cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great,”‘ because in these cities
crimes were not only not punished, but were openly committed, as if under the
protection of the law. And so in our
own times: many forms of sin, though
not just the sameas those of Sodom and Gomorrah, are now so openly and
habitually practised, that not only dare we not excommunicate a layman, we dare
not even degrade a clergyman, for the commission of them. So that when, a few years ago, I was
expounding the Epistle to the Galatians, in commenting on that very place where
the apostle says, “I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed labor upon you in
vain,” I was compelled to exclaim, “Woe to the sins of men! for it is only when
we are not accustomed to them that we shrink from them: when once we are accustomed to them, though
the blood of the Son of God was poured out to wash them away, though they are
so great that the kingdom of God is wholly shut against them, constant
familiarity leads to the toleration of them all, and habitual toleration leads
to the practice of many of them. And
grant, O Lord, that we may not come to practise all that we have not the power
to hinder.” But I shall see whether the
extravagance of grief did not betray me into rashness of speech.
I
shall now say this, which I have often said before in other places of my
works. There are two causes that lead
to sin: either we do not yet know our
duty, or we do not perform the duty that we know. The former is the sin of ignorance, the latter of weakness. Now against these it is our duty to struggle; but we shall certainly be beaten in the
fight, unless we are helped by God, not only to see our duty, but also, when we
clearly see it, to make the love of righteousness stronger in us than the love
of earthly things, the eager longing after which, or the fear of losing which,
leads us with our eyes open into known sin.
In the latter case we are not only sinners, for we are so even when we
err through ignorance, but we are also transgressors of the law; for we leave undone what we know we ought to
do, and we do what we know we ought not to do.
Wherefore not only ought we to pray for pardon when we have sinned,
saying, “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors;” but we ought to pray
for guidance, that we may be kept from sinning, saying, “and lead us not into
temptation.” And we are to pray to Him
of whom the Psalmist says, “The Lord is my light and my salvation:” my light,
for He removes my ignorance; my
salvation, for He takes away my infirmity.
Now
even penance itself, when by the law of the Church there is sufficient reason
for its being gone through, is frequently evaded through infirmity; for shame is the fear of losing pleasure
when the good opinion of men gives more pleasure than the righteousness which
leads a man to humble himself in penitence.
Wherefore the mercy of God is necessary not only when a man repents, but
even to lead him to repent. How else
explain what the apostle says of certain persons: “if God peradventure will give them repentance”?
And
before Peter wept bitterly, we are told by the evangelist, “The Lord turned,
and looked upon him.”
Now
the man who, not believing that sins are remitted in the Church, despises this
great gift of God’s mercy, anti persists to the last day of his life in his
obstinacy of heart, is guilty of the unpardonable sin against the Holy Ghost,
in whom Christ forgives sins But this difficult question I have discussed as
clearly as I could in a book devoted exclusively to this one point.
Now,
as to the resurrection of the body, —not a resurrection such as some have had,
who came back to life for a time and died again, but a resurrection to eternal
life, as the body of Christ Himself rose again—I do not see how I can discuss
the matter briefly, and at the same time give a satisfactory answer to all the
questions that are ordinarily raised about it.
Yet that the bodies of all men—both those who have been born and those
who shall be born, both those who have died and those who shall die—shall be
raised again, no Christian ought to have the shadow of a doubt.
Hence
in the first place arises a question about abortive conceptions, which have
indeed been born in the mother’s womb, but not so born that they could be born
again. For if we shall decide that
these are to rise again, we cannot object to any conclusion that may be drawn
in regard to those which are fully formed.
Now who is there that is not rather disposed to think that unformed
abortions perish, like seeds that have never fructified? But who will dare to deny, though he may not
dare to affirm, that at the resurrection every defect in the form shall be
supplied, and that thus the perfection which time would have brought shall not
be wanting, any more than the blemishes which time did bring shall be
present: so that the nature shall
neither want anything suitable and in harmony with it that length of days would
have added, nor be debased by the presence of anything of an opposite kind that
length of days has added; but that what
is not yet complete shall be completed, just as what has been injured shall be
renewed.
And
therefore the following question may be very carefully inquired into and
discussed by learned men, though I do not know whether it is in man’s power to
resolve it: At what time the infant begins
to live in the womb: whether life
exists in a latent form before it manifests itself in the motions of the living
being. To deny that the young who are
cut out limb by limb from the womb, lest if they were left there dead the
mother should die too, have never been alive, seems too audacious. Now, from the time that a man begins to
live, from that time it is possible for him to die. And if he die, wheresoever death may overtake him, I cannot
discover on what principle he can be denied an interest in the resurrection of
the dead.
We
are not justified in affirming even of monstrosities, which are born and live,
however quickly they may die, that they shall not rise again, nor that they
shall rise again in their deformity, and not rather with an amended and
perfected body. God forbid that the
double limbed man who was lately born in the East, of whom an account was
brought by most trustworthy brethren who had seen him—an account which the
presbyter Jerome, of blessed memory, left in writing; —God forbid, I say, that we should think that at the resurrection
there shall be one man with double limbs, and not two distinct men, as would
have been the case had twins been born.
And so other births, which, because they have either a superfluity or a
defect, or because they are very much deformed, are called monstrosities, shall
at the resurrection be restored to the normal shape of man; and so each single soul shall possess its
own body; and no bodies shall cohere
together even though they were born in cohesion, but each separately shall
possess all the members which constitute a complete human body.
Nor does
the earthly material out of which men’s mortal bodies are created ever
perish; but though it may crumble into
dust and ashes, or be dissolved into vapors and exhalations, though it may be
transformed into the substance of other bodies, or dispersed into the elements,
though it should become food for beasts or men, and be changed into their
flesh, it returns in a moment of time to that human soul which animated it at
the first, and which caused it to become man, and to live and grow.
And
this earthly material, which when the soul leaves it becomes a corpse, shall
not at the resurrection be so restored as that the parts into which it is
separated, and which under various forms and appearances become parts of other
things (though they shall all return to the same body from which they were
separated), must necessarily return to the same parts of the body in which they
were originally situated. For
otherwise, to suppose that the hair recovers all that our frequent clippings
and shavings have taken away from it, and the nails all that we have so often
pared off, presents to the imagination such a picture of ugliness and
deformity, as to make the resurrection of the body all but incredible. But just as if a statue of some soluble
metal were either melted by fire, or broken into dust, or reduced to a
shapeless mass, and a sculptor wished to restore it from the same quantity of
metal, it would make no difference to the completeness of the work what part of
the statue any given particle of the material was put into, as long as the
restored statue contained all the material of the original one; so God, the Artificer of marvellous and
unspeakable power, shall with marvellous and unspeakable rapidity restore our
body, using up the whole material of which it originally consisted. Nor will it affect the completeness of its
restoration whether hairs return to hairs, and nails to nails, or whether the
part of these that had perished be changed into flesh, and called to take its
place in another part of the body, the great Artist taking careful heed that
nothing shall be unbecoming or out of place.
Nor
does it necessarily follow that there shall be differences of stature among
those who rise again, because they were of different statures during life; nor is it certain that the lean shall rise
again in their former leanness, and the fat in their former fatness. But if it is part of the Creator’s design that
each should preserve his own peculiarities of feature, and retain a recognizable
likeness to his former self, while in regard to other bodily advantages all
should be equal, then the material of which each is composed may be so modified
that none of it shall be lost, and that any defect may be supplied by Him who
can create at His will out of nothing.
But if in the bodies of those who rise again there shall be a
well-ordered inequality, such as there is in the voices that make up a full
harmony, then the material of each man’s body shall be so dealt with that it
shall form a man fit for the assemblies of the angels, and one who shall bring
nothing among them to jar upon their sensibilities. And assuredly nothing that is unseemly shall be there; but whatever shall be there shall be
graceful and becoming: for if anything
is not seemly, neither shall it be.
The
bodies of the saints, then, shall rise again free from every defect, from every
blemish, as from all corruption, weight, and impediment. For their ease of movement shall be as
complete as their happiness. Whence
their bodies have been called spiritual, though undoubtedly they shall be bodies
and not spirits. For just as now the
body is called animate, though it is a body, and not a soul [anima], so then
the body shall be called spiritual, though it shall be a body, not a
spirit. Hence, as far as regards the
corruption which now weighs down the soul, and the vices which urge the flesh
to lust against the spirit, it shall not then be flesh, but body; for there are bodies which are called
celestial. Wherefore it is said, “Flesh
and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God;” and, as if in explanation of
this, “neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.” What the apostle first called “flesh and blood,” he afterwards
calls “corruption;” and what he first called “the kingdom of God,” he
afterwards calls “incorruption.” But as
far as regards the substance, even then it shall be flesh. For even after the resurrection the body of
Christ was called flesh. The apostle,
however, says: “It is sown a natural
body; it is raised a spiritual body;”
because so perfect shah then be the harmony between flesh and spirit, the
spirit keeping alive the subjugated flesh without the need of any nourishment,
that no part of our nature shall be in discord with another; but as we shall be free from enemies
without, so we shall not have ourselves for enemies within.
But
as for those who, out of the mass of perdition caused by the first man’s sin,
are not redeemed through the one Mediator between God and man, they too shall
rise again, each with his own body, but only to be punished with the devil and
his angels. Now, whether they shall
rise again with all their diseases and deformities of body, bringing with them
the diseased and deformed limbs which they possessed here, it would be labor
lost to inquire. For we need not weary
ourselves speculating about their health or their beauty, which are matters
uncertain, when their eternal damnation is a matter of certainty. Nor need we inquire in what sense their body
shall be incorruptible, if it be susceptible of pain; or in what sense corruptible, if it be free from the possibility
of death. For there is no true life
except where there is happiness in life, and no true incorruption except where
health is unbroken by any pain. When,
however, the unhappy are not permitted to die, then, if I may so speak, death
itself dies not; and where pain without
intermission afflicts the soul, and never comes to an end, corruption itself is
not completed. This is called in Holy
Scripture “the second death.”
And
neither the first death, which takes place when the soul is compelled to leave
the body, nor the second death, which takes place when the soul is not
permitted to leave the suffering body, would have been inflicted on man had no
one sinned. And, of course, the mildest
punishment of all will fall upon those who have added no actual sin, to the
original sin they brought with them;
and as for the rest who have added such actual sins, the punishment of
each will be the more tolerable in the next world, according as his iniquity
has been less in this world.
Thus,
when reprobate angels and men are left to endure everlasting punishment, the
saints shall know more fully the benefits they have received by grace. Then, in contemplation of the actual facts,
they shall see more clearly the meaning of the expression in the psalms,” I
will sing of mercy and judgment;” for it is only of unmerited mercy that any is
redeemed, and only in well-merited judgment that any is condemned.
Then
shall be made clear much that is now dark.
For example, when of two infants, whose cases seem in all respects
alike, one by the mercy of God chosen to Himself, and the other is by His
justice abandoned (where, in the one who is chosen may recognize what was of
justice due to himself, had not mercy intervened); why, of these two, the one should have been chosen rather than
the other, is to, us an insoluble problem.
And again, why miracles were not wrought in the presence of men who
would have repented at the working of the miracles, while they were wrought in
the presence of others who, it was known, would not repent. For our Lord says most distinctly: “Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee,
Bethsaida! for if the mighty works, which were done in you, had been done in
Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.” And assuredly there was no injustice in
God’s not willing that they should be saved, though they could have been saved
had He so willed it. Then shall be seen
in the clearest light of wisdom what with the pious is now a faith, though it
is not yet a matter of certain knowledge, how sure, how unchangeable, and how
effectual is the will of God; how many
things He can do which He does not will to do, though willing nothing which He
cannot perform; and how true is the
song of the psalmist, “But our God is in the heavens; He hath done whatsoever He hath pleased.” And this certainly is not true, if God has
ever willed anything that He has not performed; and, still worse, if it was the will of man that hindered the
Omnipotent from doing what He pleased.
Nothing, therefore, happens but by the will of the Omnipotent, He either
permitting it to be done, or Himself doing it.
Nor
can we doubt that God does well even in the permission of what is evil. For He permits it only in the justice of His
judgment. And surely all that is just
is good. Although, therefore, evil, in
so far as it is evil, is not a good;
yet the fact that evil as well as good exists, is a good. For if it were not a good that evil should
exist, its existence would not be permitted by the omnipotent Good, who without
doubt can as easily refuse to permit what He does not wish, as bring about what
He does wish. And if we do not believe
this, the very first sentence of our creed is endangered, wherein we profess to
believe in God the Father Almighty. For
He is not truly called Almighty if He cannot do whatsoever He pleases, or if
the power of His almighty will is hindered by the will of any creature
whatsoever.
Hence
we must inquire in what sense is said of God what the apostle has mostly truly
said: “Who will have all men to be
saved.” For, as a matter of fact, not
all, nor even a majority, are saved: so
that it would seem that what God wills is not done, man’s will interfering
with, and hindering the will of God.
When we ask the reason why all men are not saved, the ordinary answer
is: “Because men themselves are not
willing.” This, indeed cannot be said
of infants, for it is not in their power either to will or not to will. But if we could attribute to their will the
childish movements they make at baptism, when they make all the resistance they
can, we should say that even they are not willing to be saved.
Our
Lord says plainly, however, in the Gospel, when upbraiding the impious
city: “How often would I have gathered
thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings,
and ye would not!” as if the will of God had been overcome by the will of men,
and when the weakest stood in the way with their want of will, the will of the
strongest could not be carried out. And
where is that omnipotence which hath done all that it pleased on earth and in
heaven, if God willed to gather together the children of Jerusalem, and did not
accomplish it? or rather, Jerusalem was
not willing that her children should be gathered together? But even though she was unwilling, He
gathered together as many of her children as He wished: for He does not will some things and do
them, and will others and do them not;
but “He hath done all that He pleased in heaven and in earth.”
And,
moreover, who will be so foolish and blasphemous as to say that God cannot
change the evil wills of men, whichever, whenever, and wheresoever He chooses,
and direct them to what is good? But
when He does this He does it of mercy;
when He does it not, it is of justice that He does it not for “lie hath
mercy on whom He will have mercy, and whom He will He hardeneth.” And when the apostle said this, he was
illustrating the grace of God, in connection with which he had just spoken of
the twins in the womb of Rebecca, “who being not yet born, neither having done
any good or evil that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not
of works, but of Him that calleth, it was said unto her, The elder shall serve
the younger.” And in reference to this
matter he quotes another prophetic testimony:
“Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.” But perceiving how what he had said might affect those who could
not penetrate by their understanding the depth of this grace: “What shall we say then?” he says: “Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid.” For it seems unjust that, in the absence of any merit or demerit,
from good or evil works, God should love the one and hate the other. Now, if the apostle had wished us to
understand that there were future good works of the one, and evil works of the
other, which of course God foreknew, he would never have said, “not of works,”
but, “of future works,” and in that way would have solved the difficulty, or
rather there would then have been no difficulty to solve. As it is, however, after answering, “God
forbid;” that is, God forbid that there should be unrighteousness with
God; he goes on to prove that there is
no unrighteousness in God’s doing this, and says: “For He saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have
mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.” Now, who but a fool would think that God was
unrighteous, either in inflicting penal justice on those who had earned it, or
in extending mercy to the unworthy?
Then he draws his conclusion:
“So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of
God that showeth mercy.” Thus both the
twins were born children of wrath, not on account of any works of their own,
but because they were bound in the fetters of that original condemnation which
came through Adam. But He who said, “I
will have mercy on whom I will have mercy,” loved Jacob of His undeserved
grace, and hated Esau of His deserved judgment. And as this judgment was due to both, the former learnt from the
case of the latter that the fact of the same punishment not falling upon
himself gave him no room to glory in any merit of his own, but only in the
riches of the divine grace; because “it
is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth
mercy.” And indeeed the whole face,
and, if I may use the expression, every lineament of the countenance of
Scripture conveys by a very profound analogy this wholesome warning to every
one who looks carefully into it, that he who glories should glory in the
Lord.
Now
after commending the mercy of God, saying, “So it is not of him that willeth,
nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy,” that he might commend
His justice also (for the man who does not obtain mercy finds, not iniquity,
but justice, there being no iniquity with God), he immediately adds: “For the scripture saith unto Pharoah, Even
for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might show my power in
thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth.” And then he draws a conclusion that applies
to both, that is, both to His mercy and His justice: “Therefore hath He mercy on whom He will have mercy, and whom He
will He hardeneth.” “He hath mercy” of
His great goodness, “He hardeneth” without any injustice; so that neither can he that is pardoned
glory in any merit of his own, nor he that is condemned complain of anything
but his own demerit. For it is grace
alone that separates the redeemed from the lost, all having been involved in
one common perdition through their common origin. Now if any one, on hearing this, should say, “Why doth He yet
find fault? for who hath resisted His
will?” as if a man ought not to be blamed for being bad, because God hath mercy
on whom He will have mercy, and whom He will He hardeneth, God forbid that we
should be ashamed to answer as we see the apostle answered: “Nay, but, O man, who art thou that repliest
against God? Shall the thing formed say
to Him that formed it, Why hast Thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make
one vessel unto honor, and another unto dishonor?” Now some foolish people,
think that in this place the apostle had no answer to give; and for want of a reason to render, rebuked
the presumption of his interrogator.
But there is great weight in this saying: “Nay, but, O man, who art thou?” and in such a matter as this it
suggests to a man in a single word the limits of his capacity, and at the same
time does in reality convey an important reason. For if a man does not understand these matters, who is he that he
should reply against God? And if he
does understand them, he finds no further room for reply. For then he perceives that the whole human
race was condemned in its rebellious head by a divine judgment so just, that if
not a single member of the race had been redeemed, no one could justly have questioned
the justice of God; and that it was
right that those who are redeemed should be redeemed in such a way as to show,
by the greater number who are unredeemed and left in their just condemnation,
what the whole race deserved, and whither the deserved judgment of God would
lead even the redeemed, did not His undeserved mercy interpose, so that every
mouth might be stopped of those who wish to glory in their own merits, and that
he that glorieth might glory in the Lord.
These are the great works of the
Lord, sought out according to all His pleasure, and so wisely sought out, that
when the intelligent creation, both angelic and human, sinned, doing not His
will but their own, He used the very will of the creature which was working in
opposition to the Creator’s will as an instrument for carrying out His will,
the supremely Good thus turning to good account even what is evil, to the
condemnation of those whom in His justice He has predestined to punishment, and
to the salvation of those whom in His mercy He has predestined to grace. For, as far as relates to their own
consciousness, these creatures did what God wished not to be done: but in view of God’s omnipotence, they could
in no wise effect their purpose. For in
the very fact that they acted in opposition to His will, His will concerning
them was fulfilled. And hence it is
that “the works of the Lord are great, sought out according to all His
pleasure,” because in a way unspeakably strange and wonderful, even what is
done in opposition to His will does not defeat His will. For it would not be done did He not permit
it (and of course His permission is not unwilling, but willing); nor would a Good Being permit evil to be
done only that in His omnipotence He can turn evil into good.
Sometimes,
however, a man in the goodness of his will desires something that God does not
desire, even though God’s will is also good, nay, much more fully and more
surely good (for His will never can be evil):
for example, if a good son is anxious that his father should live, when
it is God’s good will that he should die.
Again, it is possible for a man with evil will to desire what God wills
in His goodness: for example, if a bad
son wishes his father to die, when this is also the will of God. It is plain that the former wishes what God
does not wish, and that the latter wishes what God does wish; and yet the filial love of the former is
more in harmony with the good will of God, though its desire is different from
God’s, than the wart of filial affection of the latter, though its desire is
the same as God’s. So necessary is it,
in determining whether a man’s desire is one to be approved or disapproved, to
consider what it is proper for man, and what it is proper for God, to desire,
and what is in each case the real motive of the will. For God accomplishes some of His purposes, which of course are
all good, through the evil desires of wicked men: for example, it was through the wicked designs of the Jews,
working out the good purpose of the Father, that Christ was slain and this
event was so truly good, that when the Apostle Peter expressed his
unwillingness that it should take place, he was designated Satan by Him who had
come to be slain. How good seemed the
intentions of the pious believers who were unwilling that Paul should go up to
Jerusalem lest the evils which Agabus had foretold should there befall him! And
yet it was God’s purpose that he should suffer these evils for preaching the
faith of Christ, and thereby become a witness for Christ. And this purpose of His, which was good, God
did not fulfill through the good counsels of the Christians, but through the
evil counsels of the Jews; so that
those who opposed His purpose were more truly His servants than those who were
the willing instruments of its accomplishment.
But
however strong may be the purposes either of angels or of men, whether of good
or bad, whether these purposes fall in with the will of God or run counter to
it, the will of the Omnipotent is never defeated; and His will never can be evil;
because even when it inflicts evil it is just, and what is just is
certainly not evil. The omnipotent God,
then, whether in mercy He pitieth whom He will, or in judgment hardeneth whom
He will, is never unjust in what He does, never does anything except of His own
free-will, and never wills anything that He does not perform.
Accordingly,
when we hear and read in Scripture that He “will have all men to be saved,”
although we know well that all men are not saved, we are not on that account to
restrict the omnipotence of God, but are rather to understand the Scripture,
“Who will have all men to be saved,” as meaning that no man is saved unless God
wills his salvation: not that there is
no man whose salvation He does not will, but that no man is saved apart from
His will; and that, therefore, we
should pray Him to will our salvation, because if He will it, it must
necessarily be accomplished. And it was
of prayer to God that the apostle was speaking when he used this
expression. And on the same principle
we interpret the expression in the Gospel:
“The true light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world:”
not that there is no man who is not enlightened, but that no man is enlightened
except by Him. Or, it is said, “Who
will have all men to be saved;” not that there is no man whose salvation He
does not will (for how, then, explain the fact that He was unwilling to work
miracles in the presence of some who, He said, would have repented if He had
worked them?), but that we are to understand by “all men,” the human race in
all its varieties of rank and circumstances—kings, subjects; noble, plebeian, high, low, learned, and
unlearned; the sound in body, the
feeble, the clever, the dull, the foolish, the rich, the poor, and those of
middling circumstances; males, females,
infants, boys, youths; young,
middle-aged, and old men; of every
tongue, of every fashion, of all arts, of all professions, with all the
innumerable differences of will and conscience, and whatever else there is that
makes a distinction among men. For
which of all these classes is there out of which God does not will that men
should be saved in all nations through His only-begotten Son, our Lord, and
therefore does save them; for the
Omnipotent cannot will in vain, whatsoever He may will? Now the apostle had enjoined that prayers should
be made for all men, and had especially added, “For kings, and for all that are
in authority,” who might be supposed, in the pride and pomp of worldly station,
to shrink from the humility of the Christian faith. Then saying, “For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God
our Saviour,” that is, that prayers should be made for such as these, he
immediately adds, as if to remove any ground of despair, “Who will have all men
to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.” God, then, in His great condescension has
judged it good to grant to the prayers of the humble the salvation of the
exalted; and assuredly we have many
examples of this. Our Lord, too, makes
use of the same mode of speech in the Gospel, when He says to the Pharisees: “Ye tithe mint, and rue, and every
herb.” For the Pharisees did not tithe
what belonged to others, nor all the herbs of all the inhabitants of other
lands. As, then, in this place we must
understand by “every herb,” every kind of herbs, so in the former passage we
may understand by “all men,” every sort of men. And we may interpret it in any other way we please, so long as we
are not compelled to believe that the omnipotent God has willed anything to be
done which was not done: for setting
aside all ambiguities, if “He hath done all that He pleased in heaven and in
earth,” as the psalmist sings of Him, He certainly did not will to do anything
that He hath not done.
Wherefore,
God would have been willing to preserve even the first man in that state of
salvation in which he was created, and after he had begotten sons to remove him
at a fit time, without the intervention of death, to a better place, where he
should have been not only free from sin, but free even from the desire of
sinning, if He had foreseen that man would have the steadfast will to persist
in the state of innocence in which he was created. But as He foresaw that man would make a bad use of his free-will,
that is, would sin, God arranged His own designs rather with a view to do good
to man even in his sinfulness, that thus the good will of the Omnipotent might
not be made void by the evil will of man, but might be fulfilled in spite of
it.
Now
it was expedient that man should be at first so created, as to have it in his
power both to will what was right and to will what was wrong; not without reward if he willed the former,
and not without punishment if he willed the latter. But in the future life it shall not be in his power to will
evil; and yet this will constitute no
restriction on the freedom of his will.
On the contrary, his will shall be much freer when it shall be wholly
impossible for him to be the slave of sin.
We should never think of blaming the will, or saying that it was no
will, or that it was not to be called free, when we so desire happiness, that
not only do we shrink from misery, but find it utterly impossible to do
otherwise. As, then, the soul even now
finds it impossible to desire unhappiness, so in future it shall be wholly
impossible for it to desire sin. But
God’s arrangement was not to be broken, according to which He willed to show
how good is a rational being who is able even to refrain from sin, and yet how
much better is one who cannot sin at all;
just as that was an inferior sort of immortality, and yet it was
immortality, when it was possible for man to avoid death, although there is
reserved for the future a more perfect immortality, when it shall be impossible
for man to die.
The
former immortality man lost through the exercise of his free-will; the latter he shall obtain through grace,
whereas, if he had not sinned, he should have obtained it by desert. Even in that case, however, there could have
been no merit without grace; because,
although the mere exercise of man’s free-will was sufficient to bring in sin,
his free-will would not have sufficed for his maintenance in righteousness,
unless God had assisted it by imparting a portion of His unchangeable
goodness. Just as it is in man’s power
to die whenever he will (for, not to speak of other means, any one can put an
end to himself by simple abstinence from food), but the mere will cannot preserve
life in the absence of food and the other means of life; so man in paradise was able of his mere
will, simply by abandoning righteousness, to destroy himself; but to have maintained a life of
righteousness would have been too much for his will, unless it had been
sustained by the Creator’s power. After
the fall, however, a more abundant exercise of God’s mercy was required,
because the will itself had to be freed from the bondage in which it was held
by sin and death. And the will owes its
freedom in no degree to itself, but solely to the grace of God which comes by
faith in Jesus Christ; so that the very
will, through which we accept all the other gifts of God which lead us on to
His eternal gift, is itself prepared of the Lord, as the Scripture says.
Wherefore,
even eternal life itself, which is surely the reward of good works, the apostle
calls the gift of God. “For the wages
of sin,” he says, “is death; but the
gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Wages.
(stipendium) is paid as a recompense for military service; it is not a gift: wherefore he says, “the wages of sin is death,” to show that
death was not inflicted undeservedly, but as the due recompense of sin. But a gift, unless it is wholly unearned, is
not a gift at all. We are to
understand, then, that man’s good deserts are themselves the gift of God, so
that when these obtain the recompense of eternal life, it is simply grace given
for grace. Man, therefore, was thus
made upright that, though unable to remain in his uprightness without divine
help, he could of his own mere will depart from it. And whichever of these courses he had chosen, God’s will would
have been done, either by him, or concerning him. Therefore, as he chose to do his own will rather than God’s, the
will of God is fulfilled concerning him;
for God, out of one and the same heap of perdition which constitutes the
race of man, makes one vessel to honor, another to dishonor; to honor in mercy, to dishonor in
judgment; that no one may glory in man,
and consequently not in himself.
For
we could not be redeemed, even through the one Mediator between God and men,
the man Christ Jesus, if He were not also God.
Now when Adam was created, he, being a righteous man, had no need of a
mediator. But when sin had placed a
wide gulf between God and the human race, it was expedient that a Mediator, who
alone of the human race was born, lived, and died without sin, should reconcile
us to God, and procure even for our bodies a resurrection to eternal life, in
order that the pride of man might be exposed and cured through the humility of
God; that man might be shown how far he
had departed from God, when God became incarnate to bring him back; that an example might be set to disobedient
man in the life of obedience of the God-Man;
that the fountain of grace might be opened by the Only-begotten taking
upon Himself the form of a servant, a form which had no antecedent merit; that an earnest of that resurrection of the
body which is promised to the redeemed might be given in the resurrection of
the Redeemer; that the devil might be
subdued by the same nature which it was his boast to have deceived, and yet man
not glorified, lest pride should again spring up; and, in fine, with a view to all the advantages which the
thoughtful can perceive and describe, or perceive without being able to
describe, as flowing from the transcendent mystery of the person of the
Mediator.
During
the time, moreover, which intervenes between a man’s death and the final
resurrection, the soul dwells in a hidden retreat, where it enjoys rest or
suffers affliction just in proportion to the merit it has earned by the life
which it led on earth.
Nor can
it be denied that the souls of the dead are benefited by the piety of their
living friends, who offer the sacrifice of the Mediator, or give alms in the
church on their behalf. But these
services are of advantage only to those who during their lives have earned such
merit, that services of this kind can help them. For there is a manner of life which is neither so good as not to
require these services after death, nor so bad that such services are of no
avail after death; there is, on the
other hand, a kind of life so good as not to require them; and again, one so bad that when life is over
they render no help. Therefore, it is
in this life that all the merit or demerit is acquired, which can either
relieve or aggravate a man’s sufferings after this life. No one, then, need hope that after he is
dead he shall obtain merit with God which he has neglected to secure here. And accordingly it is plain that the
services which the church celebrates for the dead are in no way opposed to the
apostle’s words: “For we must all
appear before the judgment-seat of Christ;
that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to
that he hath done, whether it be good or bad;” for the merit which renders such
services as I speak of profitable to a man, is earned while he lives in the
body. It is not to every one that these
services are profitable. And why are
they not profitable to all, except because of the different kinds of lives that
men lead in the body? When, then, sacri
fices either of the altar or of alms are offered on behalf of all the baptized
dead, they are thank-offerings for the very good, they are propitiatory
offerings for the not very bad, and in the case of the very bad, even though
they do not assist the dead, they are a species of consolation to the
living. And where they are profitable,
their benefit consists either in obtaining a full remission of sins, or at
least in making the condemnation more tolerable.
After
the resurrection, however, when the final, universal judgment has been
completed, there shall be two kingdoms, each with its own distinct boundaries,
the one Christ’s, the other the devil’s;
the one consisting of the good, the other of the bad—both, however,
consisting of angels and men. The
former shall have no will, the latter no power, to sin, and neither shall have
any power to choose death; but the
former shall live truly and happily in eternal life, the latter shall drag a
miserable existence in eternal death without the power of dying; for the life and the death shall both be
without end. But among the former there
shall be degrees of happiness, one being more pre-eminently happy than
another; and among the latter there
shall be degrees of misery, one being more endurably miserable than
another.
It
is in vain, then, that some, indeed very many, make moan over the eternal
punishment, and perpetual, unintermitted torments of the lost, and say they do
not believe it shall be so; not,
indeed, that they directly oppose themselves to Holy Scripture, but, at the
suggestion of their own feelings, they soften down everything that seems hard,
and give a milder turn to statements which they think are rather designed to
terrify than to be received as literally true For “Hath God” they say,
forgotten to be gracious? hath He in
anger shut up His tender mercies?” Now, they read this in one of the holy
psalms. But without doubt we are to
understand it as spoken of those who are elsewhere called “vessels of mercy,”
because even they are freed from misery not on account of any merit of their
own, but solely through the pity of God.
Or, if the men we speak of insist that this passage applies to all
mankind, there is no reason why they should therefore suppose that there will
be an end to the punishment of those of whom it is said, “These shall go away
into everlasting punishment;” for this shall end in the same manner and at the
same time as the happiness of those of whom it is said, “but the righteous unto
life eternal. But let them suppose, if
the thought gives them pleasure, that the pains of the damned are, at certain
intervals, in some degree assuaged. For
even in this case the wrath of God, that is, their condemnation (for it is
this, and not any disturbed feeling in the mind of God that is called His
wrath), abideth upon them; that is, His
wrath, though it still remains, does not shut up His tender mercies; though His tender mercies are exhibited, not
in putting an end to their eternal punishment, but in mitigating, or in granting
them a respite from, their torments;
for the psalm does not say, “to put an end to His anger,” or, “when His
anger is passed by,” but “in His anger.”
Now, if this anger stood alone, or if it existed in the smallest
conceivable degree, yet to be lost out of the kingdom of God, to be an exile
from the city of God, to be alienated from the life of God, to have no share in
that great goodness which God hath laid up for them that fear Him, and hath
wrought out for them that trust in Him, would be a punishment so great, that,
supposing it to be eternal, no torments that we know of, continued through as
many ages as man’s imagination can conceive, could be compared with it.
This
perpetual death of the wicked, then, that is, their alienation from the life of
God, shall abide for ever, and shall be common to them all, whatever men,
prompted by their human affections, may conjecture as to a variety of
punishments, or as to a mitigation or intermission of their woes; just as the eternal life of the saints shall
abide for ever, and shall be common to them all, whatever grades of rank and
honor there may be among those who shine with an harmonious effulgence.
Out
of this confession of faith, which is briefly comprehended in the Creed, and
which, carnally understood, is milk for babes, but, spiritually apprehended and
studied, is meat for strong men, springs the good hope of believers; and this is accompanied by a holy love. But of these matters, all of which are true
objects of faith, those only pertain to hope which are embraced in the Lord’s
Prayer. For, “Cursed is the man that
trusteth in man” is the testimony of holy writ; and, consequently, this curse attaches also to the man who
trusteth in himself. Therefore, except
from God the Lord we ought to ask for nothing either that we hope to do well,
or hope to obtain as a reward of our good works.
Accordingly,
in the Gospel according to Matthew the Lord’s Prayer seems to embrace seven
petitions, three of which ask for eternal blessings, and the remaining four for
temporal; these latter, however, being
necessary antecedents to the attainment of the eternal. For when we say, “Hallowed be Thy name: Thy kingdom come: Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven” (which some have
interpreted, not unfairly, in body as well as in spirit), we ask for blessings
that are to be enjoyed for ever; which
are indeed begun in this world, and grow in us as we grow in grace, but in
their perfect state, which is to be looked for in another life, shall be a
possession for evermore. But when we
say, “Give us this day our daily bread:
and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors: and lead us not into temptation, but deliver
us from evil,” who does not see that we ask for blessings that have reference
to the wants of this present life? In
that eternal life, where we hope to live for ever, the hallowing of God’s name,
and His kingdom, and His will in our spirit and body, shall be brought to
perfection, and shall endure to everlasting.
But our daily bread is so called because there is here constant need for
as much nourishment as the spirit and the flesh demand, whether we understand
the expression spiritually, or carnally, or in both senses. it is here too that we need the forgiveness
that we ask, for it is here that we commit the sins; here are the temptations which allure or drive us into sin; here, in a word, is the evil from which we
desire deliverance: but in that other
world there shall be none of these things.
But
the Evangelist Luke in his version of the Lord’s prayer embraces not seven, but
five petitions: not, of course, that
there is any discrepancy between the two evangelists, but that Luke indicates
by his very brevity the mode in which the seven petitions of Matthew are to be
understood. For God’s name is hallowed
in the spirit; and God’s kingdom shall
come in the resurrection of the body.
Luke, therefore, intending to show that the third petition is a sort of
repetition of the first two, has chosen to indicate that by omitting the third
altogether. Then he adds three
others: one for daily bread, another
for pardon of sin, another for immunity from temptation. And what Matthew puts as the last petition,
“but deliver us from evil,” Luke has omitted, to show us that it is embraced in
the previous petition about temptation.
Matthew, indeed, himself says, “but deliver,” not “anti deliver,” as if
to show that the petitions are virtually one:
do not this, but this; so that
every man is to understand that he is delivered from evil in the very fact of
his not being led into temptation.
And
now as to love, which the apostle declares to be greater than the other two
graces, that is, than faith and hope, the greater the measure in which it
dwells in a man, the better is the man in whom it dwells. For when there is a question as to whether a
man is good, one does not ask what he believes, or what he hopes, but what he
loves. For the man who loves aright no
doubt believes and hopes aright;
whereas the man who has not love believes in vain, even though his
beliefs are true; and hopes in vain,
even though the objects of his hope are a real part of true happiness; unless, indeed, he believes and hopes for
this, that he may obtain by prayer the blessing of love. For, although it is not possible to hope
without love, it may yet happen that a man does not love that which is
necessary to the attainment of his hope;
as, for example, if he hopes for eternal life (and who is there that
does not desire this?) and yet does not love righteousness, without which no
one can attain to eternal life. Now
this is the true faith of Christ which the apos tle speaks of, “which worketh
by love;” and if there is anything that it does not yet embrace in its love,
asks that it may receive, seeks that it may find, and knocks that it may be
opened unto it. For faith obtains
through prayer that which the law commands.
For without the gift of God, that is, without the Holy Spirit, through
whom love is shed abroad in our hearts, the law can command, but it cannot
assist; and, moreover, it makes a man a
transgressor, for he can no longer excuse himself on the plea of
ignorance. Now carnal lust reigns where
there is not the love of God.
When,
sunk in the darkest depths of ignorance, man lives according to the flesh undisturbed
by any struggle of reason or conscience, this is his first state. Afterwards, when through the law has come
the knowledge of sin, and the Spirit of God has not yet interposed His aid,
man, striving to live according to the law, is thwarted in his efforts and
falls into conscious sin, and so, being overcome of sin, becomes its slave
(“for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage”; and thus the effect produced by the
knowledge of the commandment is this, that sin worketh in man all manner of
concupiscence, and he is involved in the additional guilt of willful
transgression, and that is fulfilled which is written: “The, law entered that the Offense might
abound.” This is man’s second
state. But if God has regard to him, and
inspires him with faith in God’s help, and the Spirit of God begins to work in
him, then the mightier power of love strives against the power of the
flesh; and although there is still in
the man’s own nature a power that fights against him (for his disease is not
completely cured), yet he lives the life of the just by faith, and lives in
righteousness so far as he does not yield to evil lust, but conquers it by the
love of holiness. This is the third
state of a man of good hope; and he who
by steadfast piety advances in this course, shall attain at last to peace, that
peace which, after this life is over, shall be perfected in the repose of the
spirit, and finally in the resurrection of the body. Of these four different stages the first is before the law, the
second is under the law, the third is under grace, and the fourth is in full
and perfect peace. Thus, too, has the
history of God’s people been ordered according to His pleasure who disposeth
all things in number, and measure, and weight.
For the church existed at first before the law; then under the law, which was given by
Moses; then under grace, which was
first made manifest in the coming of the Mediator. Not, indeed, that this grace was absent previously, but, in
harmony with the arrangements of the time, it was veiled and hidden. For none, even of the just men of old, could
find salvation apart from the faith of Christ;
nor unless He had been known to them could their ministry have been used
to convey prophecies concerning Him to us, some more plain, and some more
obscure.
Now
in whichever of these four stages (as we may call them) the grace of
regeneration finds any particular man, all his past sins are there and then
pardoned, and the guilt which he contracted in his birth is removed in his new
birth; and so true is it that “the wind
bloweth where it listeth,” that some have never known the second stage, that of
slavery under the law, but have received the divine assistance as soon as they
received the commandment.
But
before a man can receive the commandment, it is necessary that he should live
according to the flesh. But if once he
has received the grace of regeneration, death shall not injure him, even if he
should forthwith depart from this life;
“for to this end Christ both died, and rose, and revived, that He might
be Lord both of the dead and the living;” nor shall death retain dominion over
him for whom Christ freely died.
All
the commandments of God, then, are embraced in love, of which the apostle
says: “Now the end of the commandment
is charity, out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith
unfeigned.” Thus the end of every
commandment is charity, that is, every commandment has love for its aim. But whatever is done either through fear of
punishment or from some other carnal motive, and has not for its principle that
love which the Spirit of God sheds abroad in the heart, is not done as it ought
to be done, however it may appear to men.
For this love embraces both the love of God and the love of our
neighbor, and “on these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets,” we
may add the Gospel and the apostles.
For it is from these that we hear this voice: The end of the commandment is charity, and God is love. Wherefore, all God’s commandments, one of
which is, “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” and all those precepts which are
not commandments but special counsels, one of which is, “It is good for a man
not to touch a woman,” are rightly carried out only when the motive principle
of action is the love of God, and the love of our neighbor in God. And this applies both to the present and the
future life. We love God now by faith,
then we shall love Him through sight.
Now we love even our neighbor by faith;
for we who are ourselves mortal know not the hearts of mortal men. But in the future life, the Lord “both will
bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the
counsels of the hearts, and then shall every man have praise of God;” for every
man shall love and praise in his neighbor the virtue which, that it may not be
hid, the Lord Himself shall bring to light.
Moreover, lust diminishes as love grows, till the latter grows to such a
height that it can grow no higher here.
For “greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life
for his friends.” Who then can tell how
great love shall be in the future world, when there shall be no lust for it to
restrain and conquer? for that will be
the perfection of health when there shall be no struggle with death.
But
now there must be an end at last to this volume. And it is for yourself to judge whether you should call it a
hand-book, or should use it as such. I,
however, thinking that your zeal in Christ ought not to be despised, and
believing and hoping all good of you in dependence on our Redeemer’s help, and
loving you very much as one of the members of His body, have, to the best of my
ability, written this book for you on Faith, Hope, and Love. May its value be equal to its length.
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Faith, Hope and Love